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.

 

[Maxperson]

We won't know til it's out... I hope they discuss that a long rest does not have to equal one night of sleep, that the dm can set whatever they like as a long rest: a couple days, a week, etc.

I really, really doubt that they will take those options out of the DMG. They are too popular to warrant removal.

 

[Maxperson]

it very much sounds like we do know

For those of us who don't have the patience for videos, what does it say?

 

[tetrasodium]

For those of us who don't have the patience for videos, what does it say?

I watched it the other day. No variant rules from the way it gets described, the current dmg rest options are specifically mentioned as not present. Given that wotc and none of the folks with it seem to be talking about optional/variant rules whatsoever it doesn't seem like much of a stretch given from what I remember of his wording.

 

[Yaarel]

Flight is not something that bothers me. I've allowed it IF I allow those particular races. Many times, I run games with restricted races due to my campaign world.

One of the rules we use with flight (including other creatures, not just humanoids!) is "taking off" requires the same speed as standing up: you will only move half your flying speed.


Cantrips can be a tricky thing. I completely see both side of the debate. I am not a fan of the pew pew pew of spamming cantrips, but I also feel that resorting to crossbows, etc. is not great either.


Did your "light arrows" scale in damage like a cantrip?

Now, you are already an elf, so have longbows. Why is that not sufficient? You ARE an elf, after all. It might not feel "wizardy", but it is very "elfy".

Did you give up any cantrips for this feature?

It was a normal longbow in terms of damage. ... It scaled in damage the way a longbow does.

I am Norwegian, and when I think of Elf, I have the Alfar in mind. The longbow flavor is irrelevant, and not especially elfy. By contrast, fighting by means of pure magic feels elfy.

In the compromise with the DM, the Elf didnt have cantrips. But the light beam arrows felt magical enough.

For me, the 5e decision to decouple the Elf away from Dexterity is a palpable relief. The 2024 Elf with its innate magic is great.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think for the style of campaign I like to DM and play in, this is true. I think my playstyle with a wishy washy DM usually results in disaster. I won't though say there are not other styles of games out there that can work for people. I'm only addressing the type of games I run.

False dichotomy: you claim the only possibilities are an "absolute power" DM or a "wishy washy" DM. There are other possibilities, such as a collaborative DM (e.g. "let's put our heads together and figure this out"), a division-of-labor DM ("you track initiative, and you track party finances, and you keep notes for me because I always forget" etc.), or a DM that solicits player inputs and then weaves something from those, which I sadly don't have a nice pithy name for.

They could just boot the player if it got bad enough.

Maybe! Maybe not. What if that player is the one actually hosting the game? Or if that player is friends with the FLGS owner, so if you boot them you can't run the game in that space anymore? Or that player is best friends with one of the other players and the significant other of a second player, so that you're not booting out one player, you're booting out three and suddenly the game ends from lack of participants?

It's never as simple as you think--and we're talking about worst-case scenarios, right? We're pointedly not considering best-cases here.

I don't need that rule. It is an implicit rule and no rulebook can ever take that away.

No rulebook can ever take away my right to speak up when I see bovine feces. So where does that leave us?

I run very much a Gygaxian style game.

Yeah....that was pretty obvious, I'm afraid.

 

[Zardnaar]

False dichotomy: you claim the only possibilities are an "absolute power" DM or a "wishy washy" DM. There are other possibilities, such as a collaborative DM (e.g. "let's put our heads together and figure this out"), a division-of-labor DM ("you track initiative, and you track party finances, and you keep notes for me because I always forget" etc.), or a DM that solicits player inputs and then weaves something from those, which I sadly don't have a nice pithy name for.


Maybe! Maybe not. What if that player is the one actually hosting the game? Or if that player is friends with the FLGS owner, so if you boot them you can't run the game in that space anymore? Or that player is best friends with one of the other players and the significant other of a second player, so that you're not booting out one player, you're booting out three and suddenly the game ends from lack of participants?

It's never as simple as you think--and we're talking about worst-case scenarios, right? We're pointedly not considering best-cases here.


No rulebook can ever take away my right to speak up when I see bovine feces. So where does that leave us?


Yeah....that was pretty obvious, I'm afraid.

Your compromises always involve the DM caving.

Here's my red lines. No silvery barbs, at will flying races and evil PCs.

Virtually no one IRL is going to care about those restrictions. An no they're not negotiable. Any player who does have problems I wish them luck in their future endeavors at finding a game.

A bad faith player eg CN played as CE will be removed. Session 0 dont be a jerk, dont roleplay a jerk. The chaos monkey players can go elsewhere.

The usual behaviors will also get you booted (raging, various isms and phobics).

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I have insisted(correctly) that I have it because they have given it to me. I do. When you DM you do as well.

Nnnnnnope. But isn't it funny how when you guys get people describing your position, it's this horrible affront, putting words in your mouth or thoughts in your head. But when you do it to me, it's perfectly acceptable.

Pretty funny, innit? Just friggin' hilarious.

I'm not sure how DMing by committee would work, but the tool doesn't make you a good or bad DM. Other factors do.

False dichotomy: you assert that the only possible options are an absolute dictator, or the phrase "X by committee," which specifically means the pejorative of people squabbling and producing a crappy, awful result (usually a "design" but it can be anything, legislating, etc.) Collaboration has more possible options than "X by committee."

A hammer is a tool. You can use it to make great houses. You can use it to make good houses. You can use it to make mediocre houses. You can use it to make poor houses. And you can use it to make really bad houses. The hammer doesn't make you a good builder or a bad builder. It's just a tool. And it should not be taken away from builders just because you have some crappy construction workers or a few construction workers assault coworkers with hammers.

The authority granted by the game doesn't make you a good or bad DM. It's just a tool like the hammer.

This argument only works if the tool itself has no inherent moral or ethical aspect to its use.

A sword is a tool of violence. Its only designed function is to kill, and it is specifically designed to kill human beings. You can use it to kill for good reasons, or for mediocre reasons, or for bad reasons. But because it is designed to kill, it is reasonable to set limits for its use.

"Power over others" is a tool of coercion. That's...literally what power over others is; the ability to force them to agree with you. And coercion, like physical violence, is something reasonably subject to limitations.

You can't and I've never said that you can. I've said it before and I'll say it again now. If you have a problem player you talk to him outside of the game and if he continues to be a problem, you kick him out of the game. The tool isn't there to bash players over the head any more than a hammer is for that.

But you don't need absolute power to do any of the things you just described. You never, ever have.

So the only possible thing it could be enabling that you couldn't get some other way IS the ability to bash players over the head. That's my point.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Your compromises always involve the DM caving.

They absolutely the hell do not. Do not put words in my mouth, and do not lie about the things I've said.

I won't be communicating with you from this point forward in this thread. I don't tolerate this kind of behavior.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

That is why the rule is a problem, yes.

No. The rule is actually completely pointless and moot. DMs have that power inherently, due to their position within the hobby. DMs are the limiting factor to games, not players. And that has enormous consequences for any attempt at reigning in DM power through printed words.

Humor me for a moment, what if WotC had replaced that rule I was referring to with the following rule; "Elephants in fantasy worlds must wear pink hats."

Very little actually changes. Maybe some players, dismayed with past run ins with bad DMing, will rejoice. But they will soon be disappointed as DMs will just go about handwaving and changing rules to their heart's content - as they do now. Some being so bold so as to have their elephants wear only green hats, and only with a black buckle. And still those very DMs will have dozens of players flocking to their tables, because players would rather play with rule-breaking elephants in the game, than not play at all. And players who scream, "but the rule" will end up the one's without a game.

This is because the rule isn't where the power is. So until WotC comes up with a way to have the freedom and creativity of a TTRPG without the limit of needing human DMs, they are powerless to limit those very DMs. Only players can do that, and only if they are willing to leave games.

EDIT: Before someone argues "well why have rules at all then?" That's a straw man, and you know it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I don’t think it needs to be anyone being a jerk. It is good if the things remains coherent and consistent, thus it is beneficial to have a conductor, someone who is avare of the big picture and has the final say. In typical D&D this is the GM’s role.

And I assert you can still perfectly achieve that without an absolute autarch declaring things from on high.

Or do you really mean to claim that it is completely impossible for people to collaborate on a project without one of them needing to be king thereof?