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.

 

[ezo]

I have never played a RPG - D&D or any other - where this was true.

Man... This is, literally, EVERY RPG I have ever played!!! Whether I DM or someone else does.

By agreeing to play a DM's game, you are agreeing that the DM runs the game and has final say as arbitor of the game. Failing to convince the DM to rule in the player's favor, the player can accept the DM's ruling, volunteer to DM, or leave. That is the "social contract".

If I decide, for instance, that my PC's is wearing a green cap, there is nothing the GM can do to override that.

Well, there is nothing they probably should do, but... yeah, there is plenty they can do.

In our games, we take turns DMing during the same campaign.

Generally, each DM provides an adventure for a level up. But sometimes someone DMs for several levels.

During a session, what a DM arbitrates goes. Discussions for reconsiderations happen between sessions. Because it is a shared world, each DM tends to integrate the decisions of the previous DMs.

Sounds GREAT! I would love to be in a group of players who wanted to DM... but as it is that rarely happens and most players won't DM.

(Normally the DM has a setting on mind, and is explaining the details.) If anybody cares about flight, whether for or against, it is part of the setting choice that everyone as a group makes.

This is where you'll get the most disagreement. The DM runs the game. If it is a hassle for that DM to have PCs with a natural flight speed, the DM can tell the player "no". If the player feels that strongly about it, either someone else needs to DM who doesn't mind it, the player can DM (but then they aren't playing...), or they find a new game.

 

[Yaarel]

This is where you'll get the most disagreement. The DM runs the game. If it is a hassle for that DM to have PCs with a natural flight speed, the DM can tell the player "no". If the player feels that strongly about it, either someone else needs to DM who doesn't mind it, the player can DM (but then they aren't playing...), or they find a new game.

So far flight has never been a problem, but that is because many of us are terrified of its optimization possibilities, and mitigate it before it can be a problem.

But I have had an earnest debate about cantrips. I as a player insist on cantrips − because I cant stand it when earlier editions forced a Wizard concept to shoot a crossbow or worse throw a dagger. It ruins the character concept of magic for me. One old school DM hated cantrips. During session zero while building the character, he and I worked out a compromise that both of us were pretty happy with.

 

[tetrasodium]

So far flight has never been a problem, but that is because many of us are terrified of its optimization possibilities, and mitigate it before it can be a problem.

But I have had an earnest debate about cantrips. I as a player insist on cantrips − because I cant stand it when earlier editions forced a Wizard concept to shoot a crossbow or worse throw a dagger. It ruins the character concept of magic for me. One old school DM hated cantrips. During session zero while building the character, he and I worked out a compromise that both of us were pretty happy with.

Flight is a problem in 5e and it's a problem because the rules that divide flight from gravity manipulation were removed in service of simplification

 

[Not a Decepticon]

Not, really. If you have a tyrant DM who makes a final ruling that you don't like, your have two options. 1) keep playing and the ruling happens in the game, 2) quit the game and the ruling still happens in the game as your PC becomes and NPC and is still present.

Neither of those two options stops the ruling from happening, since the DM has the final authority over what happens in the game. Of course a tyrant DM will often find himself the only person left in his game, but he still has full authority over that very lonely game of his.

Why would a dm ruling be inherently tyranical? In my game whenever there is a conflict of opinions over rules, we operate on "I make the call niw to not easte time, we can check it after the game and if I was wrong, we will use correct rule in the future". Is that tyranical?

 

[Micah Sweet]

So far flight has never been a problem, but that is because many of us are terrified of its optimization possibilities, and mitigate it before it can be a problem.

But I have had an earnest debate about cantrips. I as a player insist on cantrips − because I cant stand it when earlier editions forced a Wizard concept to shoot a crossbow or worse throw a dagger. It ruins the character concept of magic for me. One old school DM hated cantrips. During session zero while building the character, he and I worked out a compromise that both of us were pretty happy with.

What was the compromise? I kinda hate cantrips too, so I'd love to hear it.

 

[Yaarel]

Flight is a problem in 5e and it's a problem because the rules that divide flight from gravity manipulation were removed in service of simplification

To be fair, I model the Wings cantrip on reallife wings (with large birds and quetzalcuatlus in mind). It is different from what I call "telekinetic flight" (such as the Fly spell), and different again from Elemental Air flight.

I dont think there needs to be deep rules. But I think it is fun if each of the various means of flight supplies its own flavor.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Flight is a problem in 5e and it's a problem because the rules that divide flight from gravity manipulation were removed in service of simplification

Sounds like another excellent place to add more rules!

 

[Zardnaar]

Flight is a problem in 5e and it's a problem because the rules that divide flight from gravity manipulation were removed in service of simplification

Doesn't play nice with maps and grids either.

 

[Yaarel]

What was the compromise? I kinda hate cantrips too, so I'd love to hear it.

I ended up creating an Elf Cleric who "reveres light". Because he was an Elf, he was proficient with the longbow. Because he was a Cleric of light, he could make it shoot beams of light. Mechanically the beam of light was identical to a mundane arrow, except I didnt need to "count arrows" and sometimes the fact it was radiant "sunlight" mattered. It felt sufficiently magical that I was happy with it for my character concept. It felt "old school" enough that the DM was happy with it.

 

[tetrasodium]

Doesn't play nice with maps and grids either.

Yes that's really been exacerbated by stripping it back so far. I've used a tabletop display and locally run vtt for years now and said vtt added touch support a while back

Spoiler: touch

But even though I could have physically modeled flight at the table there was a situation where the rules actually thwarted doing so by being so incomplete. Ironically it was better supported at the table using coins dice cases or whatever to indicate flight and maneuverability ratings in the 3.5 dragon hatchlings game I mentioned and the 5e aaracokra game would not have improved modeling if we used a chessex map instead.

To be fair, I model the Wings cantrip on reallife wings (with large birds and quetzalcuatlus in mind). It is different from what I call "telekinetic flight" (such as the Fly spell), and different again from Elemental Air flight.

I dont think there needs to be deep rules. But I think it is fun if each of the various means of flight supplies its own flavor.

Agreed probably... I think that the ad&d2e(?) rules that basically had sections in flight rules only relevant for dog fighting aircraft and such was probably a bit too deep for what d&d needs yea, but 3.x was pretty on the mark with stuff like how slow you can be without talking and how quickly you can turn were pretty on the mark.


5e's flight "rules" are so incomplete that it feels like they were omitted by someone who never played in a game where flight factored in prominently to any meaningful degree & that's a shame.