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]

Actually you are wrong. I said that after the session we could have a discussion but that the final word was still the DMs. That doesn't mean the answer is always "No!". It does mean no committee is going to override the DM.

You explicitly did not say that. You said, verbatim, full post quote, relevant section bolded:

I would argue that in session that is exactly what I expect. I do not expect arguments about rulings at all. Now outside of the session, a player can make suggestions for anything. The DM has veto power.

The key here is the DM is working to make a great campaign. He will hopefully do what he can to accommodate interests that do not run afoul of his own. I would say though that my initial campaign overview that lays out house rules etc... is largely final. I got enthused enough to spend an inordinate amount of time developing a campaign. I also find it obnoxious when I've decided to have a world with these five races and another person wants an exception. The point I'm going for is a certain flavor. If I want a dragonborn but no dwarves, I don't want dwarves.

There is ZERO room for discussion during session OR AFTER. The one and only thing the player can do is "suggest." A suggestion is the weakest possible contribution a person can make; anything less than a suggestion becomes mere vague hinting. This is not a tolerable situation--ever.

 

[Zardnaar]

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. 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.

Pretty much. I put what I don't allow and why above. I've had problems with flyers and silvery barbs is a fun suck spell.

Rather than bans I just provide a list of spotlight races and what to expect. Eg if there's lots of poison a dwarf might be good.

Most players don't know about Mordenkainens. One kinds of said awww no flying monk.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I agree. If I make a ruling in the game and someone disagrees, he's free to make a quick statement about why he thinks the ruling should be different. I'm human and make mistakes and/or don't think of everything. However, unless the PCs life is on the line, if you make the quick argument and I decide against it, we can continue the discussion after the game is over. Continuing to argue is disruptive to the game.

And that's a reasonable stance to take. But the thing you just described isn't absolute power. It admits the possibility of error. It welcomes appropriate commentary, criticism, and review. That is not and cannot be absolute power! Absolute power bows to no one and accepts no criticism nor commentary. That's the thing that makes it absolute.

Good faith on the DM's part should be assumed, as should good faith on the players' parts. Bad DMs and bad Players are pretty rare.

Okay. If both sides are participating in good faith, why does the DM need absolute power?

And if either side is particpating in bad faith, no amount of rules, nor power, will save the game.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think it depends entirely on what "bad DM," means in that context.

If the DM is bad because they don't apply the rules properly due to ignorance, or they are not good at scene framing but willing to learn, issues like that - sure a good set of rules and good players will likely help a lot.

I would consider this a mediocre DM, rather than a bad one. And I think most DMs are mediocre....as one might expect from the term. I think good DMs are uncommon and great DMs are rare. I advocate for what I see as rules, advice, descriptons, etc. that help mediocre DMs become better and reduce the workload of good to great DMs. I don't think it's really possible to "make" a great DM, but we can shift the average up from mostly mediocre to mostly good with good rules, useful advice, and well-structured tools.

If the DM is "bad," because they are highly adversarial, confrontational, shows extreme favoritism, things like that? No rules set, no matter how good, or players, no matter how good, will likely fix that.

Certainly. My point recently has been that if we turn this around--if we talk about a bad player who misbehaves, manipulates, undermines, etc. etc., the same exact logic applies. No rules, not even "DM says," can save a group from a committed bad player who wants to ruin the game.

And if it's a clash of playstyles issue, there may not even be a bad DM involved, just bad for that particular player (or the player is bad for that particular DM) - it certainly happens.

That is where I say someone has messed up. It's not that anyone is morally at fault, but they are practically at fault. Someone erred, whether in communication, behavior, style, etc. It's possible the error might be corrected, but some errors are too severe and thus result in an unavoidable breakdown.

But if nobody has erred, which isn't that to achieve, and nobody is participating in bad faith, which it seems everyone here is willing to grant....what, exactly, is going to trip up a collaborative solution?

Bottom line is pretty simple. If everyone approaches the game in good faith, adjustments can be made, or realizations can be had that the styles are just too different. If there is bad faith involved (when a DM OR Player is out for their own amusement regardless of everyone else at the table is the usual issue) then the situation is likely not salvageable.

Well, I'm excluding your "or realizations" clause there as one of the two things I mentioned, errors rather than misbehavior. Your use of "realization" for this is telling: that would seem to agree with me that the issue there is, at least one person either communicated poorly, or failed to understand someone else who had communicated well.

If we do cut that one out (as not being bad faith, but rather one or more mistakes), it would at least seem that your position is the same as mine: "If everyone approaches the table in good faith [and correctly understands the table they're playing at], adjustments can be made."

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It's basically becsuse no at will flight at level 1. Higher up I don't care espicially if there's opportunity cost eg you aquire it via class feature. That probably won't come up.

No silvery barbs either. No at will flight, that spell or evil PCs. Those are the big red lines.

Compromise on flight is an Aasimar. Be grateful vs no flight.

NGL, it really is a bit humorous that the list has grown longer over the course of the thread. I've heard you say all of them before, so it's not like you're inventing them on the fly or anything. But at first it was "no evil PCs." Then it was "no flight at level 1 and no evil PCs." Now it's "no flight at level 1, no silvery barbs, and no evil PCs."

Our chief weapon is surprise! Surprise and fear...fear and surprise... Our two weapons are fear and surprise... and ruthless efficiency! Our three weapons are fear, and surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope...

 

[Vaalingrade]

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.

Again, other games manage just fine without declaring an alpha friend o the group who always gets to have their way.

They can have a director who guides things without being handed supreme authority, they can have fully shared narrative control, they can do many, many other things that declare one person always right. RPGs don't need the weirdly paternal relationship that D&D cultivates with the traditional application of Rule 0.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

For me it's more "You're welcome to question anything I say, but be warned: you might not like the answers."

I suppose it depends on how much I don't like them then. "Because you questioned me, you're out" would be a mixed curse, so to speak. If I'm invested in the game I'll be upset about leaving. But I would never want to play with someone who thinks merely questioning their decisions is reason to boot someone out.

The blanket presumption I make on the DM's part is that it's in her interest to (and that she wants to) keep her game going, and is thus likely to act accordingly.

I do not make the same blanket presumption of players mostly because it's often not as clearly in any specific player's interest that the game keeps going. Sometimes, though rarely, for whatever reason a player might in fact be trying to undermine the game such that it does not keep going (I've seen this, long ago, when a player "got religion" and tried to drag the game down with him when he left).

I....don't see how this actually defends the point. If the DM "got religion" in the same way, don't you think they would end the game too?

I genuinely do not see any way that this argument isn't fully symmetric between DMs and players.

Agreed, to a point. We can look at the spectrum of player behavior without regard to any variance in DMs, just as we can look at the spectrum of DM behavior without regard to any variance in players. Both are valid discussions IMO.

But to predicate "this approach is not only good but necessary because we assume DMs are well-behaved, but assume some players will always be badly behaved" is not acceptable.

"Let's talk about what things DMs can do if they have misbehaving players" is, I freely agree, a perfectly valid discussion. That is not the discussion we are having here. It's not even related to the discussion we're having here, other than at the simplistic level of being about DMs and players. DMs don't need absolute power in order to deal with one or two problem players. And if more than two players are problem players....well, there's two plausible conclusions. Either the group was dysfunctional from the word "go" and was never going to work out anyway...or maybe it's not the players who are the real problem.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The thing is, yhis whole thread is full of people with opposite assumption - players are never at fault, dm always is. Why the double standard?

Who?

Who has said this?

Name, or rather quote, two people in this thread who have explicitly said that, that players are absolutely never at fault and DMs are always at fault.

I'll wait. If the thread is "full of them," you should be able to find two examples easily.

The double standard is in treating the DM as an incorruptible angel. That's why I'm calling it out.

 

[Maxperson]

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 wouldn't know as I didn't put a single word in your mouth.

I said D&D gives you absolute authority and so you have it, and it does, so you have it. You didn't say that. I did. Because the D&D rules do.

That you don't avail yourself of it doesn't mean that the game doesn't give it to you or that you don't have it.

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

That is correct. There is no moral or ethical aspect inherent in the DM's authority. None. Any good use or ill is purely on the part of the human using the tool, not the tool itself.

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.

Sure, but this is apples to DM authority oranges. DM authority has absolutely no inherent abuse built into it. None. It is designed to allow the DM to facilitate the game in a way that allows it to run smoothly and enjoyably for all players, including the DM.

"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.

Then it's probably a good thing that DMing authority isn't power over other people then. I don't have any power to make you agree with me, even if you are a player at my table. Further, I have no ability to coerce you into anything. My power is over the game, not you. Not any player. The game. You always have the option to leave any game you are in. You have the option to go with the DM's ruling and stay. None of it is forced.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I wouldn't know as I didn't put a single word in your mouth.

Yes, you did. You said that I claim absolute power. That's what you have said of my choice to DM.

That is correct. There is no moral or ethical aspect inherent in the DM's authority. None. Any good use or ill is purely on the part of the human using the tool, not the tool itself.

Yes, there is. As there always is with a claim of authority. A claim of authority means you are claiming control over someone else in some way. That's why authority is such an important and fraught thing, why we have endless philosophical debates about the nature of justice and the legitimate use of force etc., etc., etc.

Authority is a morally-charged thing. It has to be--because you're claiming to have power over others in some way.

Then it's probably a good thing that DMing authority isn't power over other people then.

Yes, it absolutely is. Just because it's only power in one small domain doesn't mean it isn't power! You literally CALLED it "absolute power"! It's not my word. It's yours.