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.

 

[Yaarel]

There will be settings in which even a single PC elf will disrupt things to the point where it should not be allowed. If the setting had elves that disappeared 2000 years ago and not one has been seen since, a single PC will will throw the entire world into chaos and completely alter the way the game is played.

I agree. My go-to example for this kind of disruptiveness is putting Chthulu in a MyLittlePony setting.

Normally, the Elf in a No-Elf setting can figure out a way for both player and DM to get at what it is they specifically need.

 

[pemerton]

The Monster Manual was a DM product just like the DMG. Neither books were intended for players.

To quote myself, quoting the AD&D MM:

Moldvay Basic (which is what I started with) tells all participants to read the Monster chapter; it does not reserve it to the GM.

I also note the following remark in the Foreword to the MM:

One final note: as valuable as this volume is with its wealth of information, some DMs may wisely wish to forbid their players from referring to the MANUAL in the midst of an encounter, since it will be considerably more challenging to confront a monster without an instant rundown of its strengths and weaknesses - and besides, a D&D player’s true mettle (and knowledge) will be put to the test. And as even the most casual D&D player knows, that’s what this fascinating game is all about. . .

Read on, and enjoy!​

There is nothing there telling players not to read the book. In fact they are told to read on! The suggested limit is on consulting the MM during an encounter - in other words, players are expected to rely on their knowledge, as the quoted passage goes on to say.

This is before we get to the notion that a Dwarf or Gnome can speak the language of Kobolds, and that a Gnome gets +1 to hit against them, while having no familiarity with them.

I mean, you and those you play with can do whatever you want. But your statement about who is or isn't "allowed" to read the MM is not borne out by the actual book itself, nor by the common practices of the time.

 

[ezo]

If I remove options from the Players Handbook, players need to agree on it, for the sake of peace.

You are a gentler DM than I am. If I remove something, I have a reason for it. Players can either accept it or move on, to which I will not begrudge them that right and in fact, encourage them to exercise it.

If a player was surprised the DM is allowed to create a new monster, or use a monster from an indy publisher, I would be surprised.

This isn't about creating a new monster, it is about modifiying the lore of an existing monster as presented in the MM.

Returning to the current example of the kobold. The MM presents kobold as average (low) intelligence. So, a player seeing the DM play one was (very?) low intelligence causes problems because the fiction being presented doesn't match the player's fiction generated by reading the MM.

A common example is when the PC makes an attack and misses by 1. The player might say "but orc chiefs are AC 4 in the MM, I should have hit." What the player doesn't know, is this is an orc cheif who happens to have protection from good cast on him by a tribal shaman, imposing at -2 penalty on the to hit roll.

So, the DM tells the player the attack misses, and the player gets huffy about it.

Granted, this was pretty common back in the 80s in middle and high school playing AD&D. Thankfully, today as adults most players are just like "Huh? Really, ok. Something must be going on I don't know about..." and leave it at that. When they later discover the shaman or a ring of protection or whatever, it is a mystery solved.

 

[pemerton]

For more specifics, do you recall if you or any player in the group commented on how dumb or nonsensicle the kobold as acting under the interrogation?

Yes. I've repeatedly stated that it was made clear to the GM that we - the players - did not accept his proposed characterisation of Kobolds.

you seem to come of as whiny "but the MM says!" players who left in a huff feeling the DM wasted your time.

This is where I ask, again, why am I under any obligation to humour a GM who is wasting my time?

That GM claimed to be experienced. Yet was terrible. I have been GMed by a friend of mine - using Burning Wheel - who has GMed only a dozen sessions or so but leaves that GM absolutely for dead. It's some of the best GMing I've experienced: a vibrant sense of the fiction; a powerful sense of consequence; and engaging situations. Why would I spend time being bored and frustrated by a terrible GM, when I could spend time running a game that I and others enjoy, or being GMed by someone who does an amazing job?

I mean, just to start: what sort of terrible GM allows the players to spend time at the table coming up with a plan to capture and interrogate a NPC, and then to begin to operationalise that plan, if the whole time they are planning to narrate the NPC as incapable of answering questions? If they want to run their railroad, at least have the courtesy to be upfront about it and spare everybody that hour or whatever of wasted play time.

 

[Emerikol]

That's probably the divide, yes. I encourage my players to create scenery like that. I've found over the years it makes them more attached to the ebb-and-flow of scenes that are more the "connective tissue", not the major conflicts. Any tactic that increases participation is a plus.

It helps that probably 2/3 of my players are DMs as well, so they all have a pretty good sense of where scenes are going and what elements to introduce would be relatively appropriate.

Having the player say "I approach the 7 ft tall hairy orc at the bar and challenge him to arm-wrestling" is more immersive and fun, to me, than having the player ask "Is there anyone tough at the bar for me to arm-wrestle" and me rolling on my table of 1d100 bar patrons to check.

My players would say something like, "I want to go to a tavern with a reputation for real bruisers" and I'd mostly say in a big city, "After a bit of search you find a dive on 5th avenue (or whatever)".

 

[Emerikol]

To quote myself, quoting the AD&D MM:
I mean, you and those you play with can do whatever you want. But your statement about who is or isn't "allowed" to read the MM is not borne out by the actual book itself, nor by the common practices of the time.

So you chose to just ignore what I said. It said if you are a kobold go read the kobold section. It doesn't say go read everything.

 

[Maxperson]

Normally, the Elf in a No-Elf setting can figure out a way for both player and DM to get at what it is they specifically need.

No. Take my example of the elves which vanished 2000 years ago. News of the single PC elf will travel like wildfire. The kingdoms of the world will all take great interest. Some will want to kill the PC to keep elves from returning or learning of what things are now like if they had issues with elves in the past. Others will want to use the elf, others capture the elf for interrogation, and so on. The entire world will change and be thrown into chaos over that one PC elf.

Change on that level will usually be extremely disruptive to whatever campaign is going on and the DM can and should say no to disruption like that.

 

[Oofta]

I don't know what you mean by "social contract" here. The only usage I'm familiar with in the context of RPGs comes from The Forge, where it means (roughly) the agreement to use a particular set of constraints, rules, processes and expectations in establishing the content of the shared fiction.

The same people who coined that terminology endorse the "Lumpley Principle", which asserts that social contract is prior to system - or in other words, that formal rules that proclaim that one party has authority can't actually do any work, if there is no agreement among participants. Which is exactly what I have been saying, and is why rules that purport to give one party absolute power in respect of the shared fiction are pointless.

And this is not just semantics - presenting it as semantics is, in effect, an attempt to put forward a particular type of play (namely, GM-driven railroading) as if it were normative or even exclusive. As soon as we have non-railroading play - that is, play where the players can actually make a meaningful difference to what happens next - then it has to be the case that the GM does not have unlimited power over the shared fiction; because it has to be the case that the players can do things or produce results that bind the GM. (Because if they can't, then only the GM can make a meaningful difference to what happens next, and we're back on the railroad.)

I didn't learn RPGing in the 2nd ed and 3E eras. I learned RPGing primarily from Moldvay Basic. Secondary sources, for me, were Classic Traveller and Gygax's AD&D books; and also early White Dwarf essays, especially from Lewis Pulsipher and Roger Musson. None of these deny that the GM is bound by rules and expectations, or assert that the GM has unlimited power to make up whatever they want whenever they want, so that all the players can do is prompt the GM to make decisions about what to include or not to include in the shared fiction.

These differences between GM-driven and other approaches aren't just semantic. I've encountered them, repeatedly, both in actual play experiences and in conversations about them.

My view is that GM-driven play is inherently fragile in a way that other approaches are not, because everything depends upon the GM having worthwhile stuff to say, and there is no turning to the players to produce their own worthwhile stuff. I also think that that fragility can be reduced by GMs recognising that their stuff will only become part of the shared fiction if the players accept it, and therefore taking note of what does or doesn't engage or enthuse their players, and factoring that into their decision-making about what sort of stuff to produce. A futile insistence that the GM's power to make up stuff is unlimited is not only empty - as the Lumpley Principle tells us - but distracts GM's attention from what they actually need to make a GM-driven game go, which is not an insistence on their power but rather ongoing success in engaging their players.

I read repeated stories on these boards about failed or unhappy play - a recent one was in this thread, with a GM poster lamenting the inanity of one of the players in his game having his PC Firebolt a random bird in the woods. There is a fruitful pathway to better play experiences for that poster, but insisting on the GM's absolute power over the fiction is not part of that pathway. Acknowledgement of the Lumpley Principle, and then the next step of thinking How can I create fiction that my players will experience as worthwhile, so that they don't feel obliged to entertain themselves by having their PCs Firebolt random birds, is part of that pathway.

I mean, even going back to the story I told about the Kobold interrogation that brought a game to an end. Insisting that that GM had absolute power, and that we as players were all obliged to go along with the GM's conception, contributes nothing to understanding (i) what happened , and (ii) how it might have been avoided, such that everyone at that table could have had a better time. Whereas recognising that shared fiction is, by definition, shared; and hence that uptake by the players matters; and hence that the real issue is not any supposed absolute power, but rather how to come up with stuff that is worthwhile, engaging and even (heavens forbid!) compelling - that actually helps identify a pathway to a solution. The first step on that path being recognising when the players are telling you that your stuff is terrible.

Rule 0 has nothing to do with a PC firebolting a random bird. The player is in control of their PC and can have them take any action they want. As I noted above, the DM may say it doesn't happen for various reasons such as in the firebolt scenario the group didn't know they were in an antimagic zone.

But as long as the PC is doing something that is not physically impossible and there's no rules disagreement they can do whatever they want. The DM determines the impact those actions have on the world. In no way is the DM telling the players what they can or cannot do.

I find it hard to believe that this is not clear. The dictator DM controlling every action of the PCs is nothing but a strawman with an incredibly rare one in a million exception of a truly bad DM. A strawman that is not supported by the rules or any post on this forum by people who support DM making the final call that I have seen.

When it comes to world building and backstory, that's going to vary widely. Some people build a new world collaboratively. I have an established world and I work with players to see how they fit. Others will propose a specific backstory for the group. Same way with the fiction of the world. Some give players pretty free reign to add world details but the default is that the players are only responsible for their PCs. I work with players to figure out downtime activities that fit.

Rule 0 has nothing to do with railroading. It's insulting to keep framing it that way.

 

[Oofta]

What Yaarel said.

In my experience, that negotiation normally consists of putting forward reasons. Depending on what is being discussed, those reasons might pertain to the fiction, to some consideration of mechanical balance or elegance, or both, or even some other relevant consideration. I've never found it to be different in D&D and other RPGs, because the basic issue is the same in all cases: what process are we going to use to work out the content of the shared fiction, and what happens next.

I can remember a few occasions in my 4e D&D game. I remember a playing asking if Weapon Focus (Dagger) would enhance a dagger used as a Sorcerer implement. I read the feat description - Choose a specific weapon group, such as spears or heavy blades. You gain a +1 feat bonus to damage rolls with your chosen weapon group. I pointed out that it seemed obvious that the damage bonus attends damage dealt using a weapon - and that Sorcerer powers have the Implement keyword, not the Weapon keyword. The player agreed with my reasoning. Subsequent errata went the same way.

I remember starting a session. The PCs were at a banquet. The action was picking up from the conclusion of the previous session, where the PCs had just provoked their enemy, hitherto keeping his true nature secret, into revealing himself in rage. As part of my framing at the start of the following session, I described the attitude and reactions of some of the minor NPCs present. One of the players queried what I was saying - it seemed to go against the fact that the players had succeeded in their skill challenge, and hence had successfully goaded their enemy into revealing himself as an evil wizard. I agreed with what the player said, and corrected my framing.

The wizard PC in that game had a feat that granted a +2 bonus to skill checks for rituals. I think the authors of the feat intended it to affect only rituals as mechanically defined. My player interpreted it as affecting any skill check that pertained to a ritual, whether or not that was a ritual in the mechanical sense. His interpretation was more interesting, and hardly overpowered, and so we played the feat that way. At least once or twice a question would come up as to whether or not some feat of Arcana the character was performing was a ritual, and he and I would discuss it and reach an agreement. This meant that he took the lead in developing a "theory" of how magic worked in the campaign world.

Here's an example from non-D&D play, namely, Classic Traveller:
For clarifying factual questions, Google is helpful.

A session or two later in that Traveller game, I described some pseudo-scientific aspect of a room in the excavated installation: a field of some sort keeping certain gases inside a room and stopping them leaking into the corridor. The electrical engineer in our group asked a bit more about this; I read a bit more from the module I was using; he groaned and face-palmed, but let me keep going. I was in no position to contradict his scientific and technical intuitions, which are far stronger than mine; and was grateful that he didn't press the point!

That was a lot of text to dodge a simple question. The DM says the rule works like X, the player says Y. X and Y are not compatible, there is no compromise. What happens?

 

[Oofta]

I didn't assert that it is. I have been talking about the shared fiction, not just "world lore".

But in the post you quoted, I did give an example of "world lore", namely, the player establishing PC backstory.

And I do not have, nor claim to have, any such power. Yet I manage to play D&D (and other RPGs too) and the only time I get in any trouble is when posters on ENW tell me that I don't know how to play D&D!

You're "getting in trouble" because you continuously tell us we're playing the game wrong because you run it a different way.