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]

I just posted an example that shows you're wrong. The GM insisted that the Kobold lacked the cognitive ability to provide any information under interrogation. The players didn't agree. We were so stubborn in our existence that, the next time that GM showed up to the RP club, he had to find a whole new set of players and start a new game.

The game can't progress without consensus on the shared fiction. And the GM has no capacity to compel that.

No you didn't. You only showed that you can leave the game. The shared fiction with his new group will include kobolds that lack the cognitive ability to provide information. You didn't change anything in the shared fiction of his game at all, or stop the shared fiction from moving forward. All you did was remove yourself from the shared fiction of his world and game and go somewhere else.

 

[mamba]

But if the players have a different view, the GM might accommodate their framing to what the players think. I see this happen from time to time in my own RPGing.

yes, it can go either way, but the differences need to be reconciled. Even if the DM uses the players fiction as the basis, it was still the DM deciding what the shared fiction is however.

 

[Maxperson]

The arguments in this thread are in a sense a trial or conflict between competing norms. Those on the strong-DM side are vested in exhibiting a norm that players ought to shape what they imagine in line with what DM proposes. Exhibition strengthens a norm. Others not beholden to a strong-DM norm point out that DM authority lacks force in the real world for anyone who resists the underlying norm that procures it. (There is no colour that the hat really is, in the real world.)

I will point out that in the game of D&D, unless it has been agreed to prior by the DM and all involved that the game will be run differently, the bolded is bad faith. D&D's default is that the DM narrates the game world and the PCs interact with that narration, so if the cap is red and the player refuses red and insists on green, that player is acting in bad faith.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

For those of you who think I'm somehow inventing antagonistic attitudes from DMs who claim this sort of power, I think it would be enlightening to look up the original source of the phrase "Viking Hat" with regard to DMs.

Word of warning: it's violent, it's crude, it's (blatantly) sexual/fetishistic in imagery.

Here's the post, from 2002 on RPG.net.

You do realzie this psot is blatantly a joke, right? This is someone being sarcastic.

 

[mamba]

What's unrealistic about a green cap?

the DM objecting to it

 

[GMforPowergamers]

This notion of "the DM's game" has been foreign to me for nearly 40 years - ever since, after GMing for a couple of years, I started to work out how a good non-dungeon-crawling RPG might work.

Way back in the second half of the 80s, players established facts about their PCs, their PCs' backstories, etc, that were part of the shared fiction and that I as GM had no unilateral power to veto or change or ignore.

for 20 years I have played with atleast SOME other DMs at my table, since 2015 it has either been all DMs or con/store games to teach... since covid lockdown it is ALL DMs. THis has lead to many fights here on enworld. We are all equals. We all make rules calls, discuss plot and rules as equals.

The DM pitches the game idea (often modified by 'hey what if we add this' or 'I really don't want X') often we have multi pitches and vote on it. Then in game we are still equals... if a player tells me he thinks something is unfair, or unfun we can pause and discuss it. At first this was time consuming, but as we all jelled we all know most of what we do and don't want....

We don't always agree on what the 'best' way to run is but we all agree for a game. So in my campaign flanking does nothing. In Jon's game Flanking adds +1 to hit and damage, and in Matt and Kurts games Flanking gives advantage. None of us think the others are 'breaking the rules.. Ross has run all three ways at different campaigns. This is something we discuss in the voteing on pitch stage before session 0...

 

[Emerikol]

We don't always agree on what the 'best' way to run is but we all agree for a game. So in my campaign flanking does nothing. In Jon's game Flanking adds +1 to hit and damage, and in Matt and Kurts games Flanking gives advantage. None of us think the others are 'breaking the rules.. Ross has run all three ways at different campaigns. This is something we discuss in the voteing on pitch stage before session 0...

I think the only difference for me would be that each DM would decide the rules for his campaign. There could be some discussion ahead of time and that could have influence on any DMs decision. The difference is the DM would decide at the end for his particular campaign and in your type of situation everyone would honor the DMs decisions when they are not DM.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I've already given examples - at a certain level of abstraction, but can elaborate a bit if anyone cares for the detail of decades-old games.

If the players are working with an idea of the shared fiction - about who their PCs are, or what their background is, or what it is that gives meaning to what the PCs are doing - that differs from the GM's, then that does not make for an effective game. In fact, in my experience, it can make games collapse, if the GM tries to insist on their vision over that of the players.

The GM has no unilateral power to just dictate what the players should think about all those things, and in my view would be foolish to try and insist on any such power - especially because, the more intimately involved it becomes vis-a-vis the PCs, the more likely it is that the player cares more about it than the GM.

Here's one example: I was playing in a game run by someone I'd only recently met in the context of a university RPG club. He was running an adventure that may have been of his own design, or may have been a module - if I ever knew which, I no longer remember. What I do remember is that we - the PCs - were in a town, that was under some sort of assault from Kobolds. So we - the players - decided, as our PCs, to capture a Kobold and interrogate it. Which we did.

Our view of what one might learn from interrogating a Kobold was informed by our knowledge of the Monster Manual, which states that Kobolds have Average (low) intelligence. In other words, interrogating a Kobold is not that different from interrogating a normal person.

The GM had the Kobold respond to every question we asked it in any utterly hopeless and incomprehending fashion - we got the same sorts of responses from it as one might get from a 2 or 3 year old child. It could not tell us anything about how it had got into the city, how many other Kobolds there were, where they were coming from, what their disposition of forces was, etc.

We politely let the GM tell us all this. And then we (the players) all agreed that we would pull out of the game and start a new game ourselves.

The GM did not have the unilateral power to establish how intelligent a Kobold is, or what they are able to communicate under interrogation. He tried to do that, in disregard of the rulebook (the MM) that we were all familiar with, and that the GM knew we (the players) had in mind in deciding on our capture-and-interrogation plan. But he failed: we (the players) didn't accept his suggestion about what the shared fiction was, and we walked away from the game.

Maybe that GM is out there somewhere still, insisting that that Kobold really lacked the cognitive abilities to answer the questions that we put to it. But his solitary imagination does not constitute an episode of RPG play.

To me that would be a very disrespectful move on the part of the players (to leave because you don't agree with how the GM is roleplaying an NPC). That isn't your area as a player, because it isn't your PC.

 

[Emerikol]

I think we have if nothing else demonstrated to @pemerton that there are other play styles that are popular.

What is great and I hold to it faithfully is that no matter how rare your approach to a game is if you can find players it is not too rare. You can play any way you like. I think the pushback is when you go against widely held ideas about D&D and act like your mainstream in your thinking. You aren't. And I am ready to say about many things gaming related I am not either. On DM authority over the fiction though, I think you are in a distinct minority.

Play the game you want to play. I will say though that I'd question whether D&D is the right game given your tastes. I'd think a more shared fiction game would be better for you.

And to be brutally honest, I wouldn't mind your style for a one shot in a car riding cross country playing with family and younger kids. I'm just not going to spend precious gaming type playing what you like because for me I have a preferable style to go after. YMMV of course. People are different.

So I love you Pemerton, I really do. I appreciate your voice on these boards. I just don't agree with your assumptions and we can just agree to disagree.

 

[ezo]

Here's one example: I was playing in a game run by someone I'd only recently met in the context of a university RPG club. He was running an adventure that may have been of his own design, or may have been a module - if I ever knew which, I no longer remember. What I do remember is that we - the PCs - were in a town, that was under some sort of assault from Kobolds. So we - the players - decided, as our PCs, to capture a Kobold and interrogate it. Which we did.

Good so far.

Our view of what one might learn from interrogating a Kobold was informed by our knowledge of the Monster Manual, which states that Kobolds have Average (low) intelligence. In other words, interrogating a Kobold is not that different from interrogating a normal person.

Here is your first mistake. You know nothing of the GM or his game world, you are just joining it. By referencing game material you are making an assumption about his world.

Second mistake. Average (low) could result in an INT anywhere from 5 to 10. This is not necessarily at all like interrogating a normal person. When you consdier INT 1 is animal intelligence, this kobold you captured might have just been am INT 5, well below normal and just barely above being considered semi-intelligent.

The GM had the Kobold respond to every question we asked it in any utterly hopeless and incomprehending fashion - we got the same sorts of responses from it as one might get from a 2 or 3 year old child. It could not tell us anything about how it had got into the city, how many other Kobolds there were, where they were coming from, what their disposition of forces was, etc.

I assume you spoke to it either in Kobold, Goblin, Orcish, or the alignment tongue, because they don't speak Common?

It could also have been acting in such a fashion to try to convince you it really didn't know anything, even if it did.

Finally, some of the info you wanted a "common soldier cannon-fodder-type" might not know or be able to communicate in an informative fashion.

"How did you get into the city!?"
- We walk.

"How many of you are there!?"
- We many.

"Where are you coming from!?"
- Camp.

"Where are your forces!?"
- Inside city.

I mean, it is hard to say considering I wasn't there, but I can think of all sorts of reasons why the DM had the kobold answer how it might have. Playing dumb, actually dumb, providing gibberish because it doesn't believe it can trust you, lying to you with misinformation, etc.

We politely let the GM tell us all this. And then we (the players) all agreed that we would pull out of the game and start a new game ourselves.

LOL I would have laughed you all off of the table. If you think you know better, you go DM your own game. I mean, if you did what you actually wrote, without prompting the DM with questions why the resposnes were not what you expected, etc. I would be glad to be rid of you.

The GM did not have the unilateral power to establish how intelligent a Kobold is, or what they are able to communicate under interrogation. He tried to do that, in disregard of the rulebook (the MM) that we were all familiar with, and that the GM knew we (the players) had in mind in deciding on our capture-and-interrogation plan.

Wrong. The DM does have unilateral power in their own game. You as players assumed you knew better than the person running the game. To me, that reeks of something akin to rules lawyering, which I don't tolerate. As DM, I know things about the game YOU DO NOT, like in this case perhaps this is just a really stupid kobold? The info in the MM is for the general, average creature, and the DM can change any or all of it as they see fit.

But he failed: we (the players) didn't accept his suggestion about what the shared fiction was, and we walked away from the game.

No, he didn't fail at all. He exercised his power and authority in running his game how he wanted to run it.

What YOU did was exercise your power and authority to choose not to play in his game, which is great! That, of course, is your right.

Maybe that GM is out there somewhere still, insisting that that Kobold really lacked the cognitive abilities to answer the questions that we put to it. But his solitary imagination does not constitute an episode of RPG play

I truly hope he is! As a DM it is his game to run and as player it is your game to play in it.

It wasn't his solitary imagination. You all resposded to it, so shared it. You didn't like it, so walked away. Just like if I go to a movie or play I don't like, I walk away.

Good for you! But... good for him, too.