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]

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.

No. I absolutely have the power to unilaterally say what happens with no talk. That I don't use the power 999 times out of 1000 doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. It just means that I run a normal game and don't abuse my authority.

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

Because that one time in a thousand, it's necessary to have for good reasons. It can be exercised in good faith.

That 1 in a 1000 is arbitrary by the way. I probably use it less than that. Less than 5 times over a 41 year period of DMing isn't a whole heck of a lot.

 

[Maxperson]

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

Re-read it. I never said you claimed it. I said I have it and so do you, because the rules give it to us. No words in your mouth.

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.

No. My authority only extends to the game. No one is forced, despite what you may believe.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It'd just be nice for D&D to jettison this antiquated version of it.

Why? Why can't there just be different games?

 

[Vaalingrade]

Why? Why can't there just be different games?

I'll start with this thread and all the people defending their authority over a pretend game with friends.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

No one is saying all games need a DM with final authority and responsibility. Many games don't. But plenty, including most interpretation of D&D, do have that.

And that's ok. People who want something else can play something else, or change their own game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'll start with this thread and all the people defending their authority over a pretend game with friends.

Not really following your logic. There are lots of games out there to play. Some of them as you say don't have the same kind of DM-player relationship as most interpretations of D&D.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It can be exercised in good faith.

Nope. That's the sticking point. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, after all.

 

[Maxperson]

Nope. That's the sticking point. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, after all.

DMing is proof positive that it doesn't. Of course power over a game isn't absolute power anyway. It's just power over a game.

 

[Distracted DM]

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.

Appreciate the summary! Ditching optional rules would be laaame. I'm surprised we don't have a Table of Contents screenshot yet.

Tales of the Valiant GMG and A5E's T&T are probably the best resources a GM could get... ToV for newer folks.
ToV's GMG has some great optional rules, emphasizing "make it your game."

 

[Mort]

Nope. That's the sticking point. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, after all.

With that statement, how can 5e be properly played as written?

5e is VERY clear:

For the players, the rules are rules.

For the DM, the rules are suggestions.

As such, the power imbalance is near absolute.

5e assumes the DM will be running in good faith, but doesn't give the players any in game tools to in any way assure that.