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.

 

[pemerton]

Who's to say if you had used that captured kobold as bait to capture some more you would not have gotten useful information from them?

What would the point of this be? It's exactly the same outcome, except dragged out over N additional hours of playtime. Talk about time-wasting boondoggling!

 

[Emerikol]

I don't know why you think it is better for the players to depart without explanation, than to express a view to the GM about why they don't want to accept the GM's proposed fiction. To me, the opposite seems the case: generally it makes sense for the players to express their views, so the GM can course correct. This seems less likely to lead to exploded games and people wasting one another's time.

Well no doubt that DM has failed to screen his players for sure. He shouldn't have got in a situation where he has players that don't accept rule 0. If you have a reason other than you just reject rule 0 then by all means state it but I have to stand on rule 0 on the principle of it. If players ever threaten me as DM, I would say "Just carry out your threat" because I would not bow to threats.

 

[Yaarel]

Either it's an elf or it's not. Refluffing the elf stat block into something else isn't playing an elf. It's playing a Goonygoogoo with stats similar to an elf. If a player wants to play an elf in such a setting, it will be disruptive.

So the player doesnt care about the mechanics, but wants to play the elf narrative.

The setting proposes that elves are an ancient extinct race. For some reason unclear to me, it is important that the elf species remains extinct, and doesnt return by means cloning ancient DNA, or showing up in an unknown area of the planet like some prehistoric species do that turn out to still exist somewhere. Maybe the player is satisfied with being a human who is only somewhat elflike, such as an atavistic feature from an ancient ancestor who was an elf.

Whatever it is that players heart is set on, normally, there can be an accommodation.

 

[pemerton]

You keep changing back and forth. If you walk into a tavern and say "I talk to the big green orc at the bar" and in the campaign there is no orc that is creating fiction. If the orc becomes real on the spot then that would be creating the fiction. I have no dispute with acting within your character (actor stance) and interacting with the world. I suppose the resulting events are ongoing fiction but I'm talking about the former not the later.

I'm not changing back and forth. You telling me that you misunderstood what I said doesn't mean that I was equivocating.

I mean, I've not said anything about talking to Orcs in bars. You are debating an example I gave where the GM narrated the town, the Kobold attacks, the Kobold that our PCs captured and tried to interrogate, etc. This has nothing to do with stance or with "narrative control" or whatever other terminology you want to use. It's about the fact that the GM narrated consequences of our action declarations that we, as players, did not accept as part of the shared fiction of the game.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Hmm. They had multiple people who knew the kobold language, which is a strong indicator that kobolds aren't as rare as that.

True, and if they were unknown in the setting, the DM should have suggested they pick a different language. Generally, if a PC knows a language, I take any opportunity for them to benefit from it. But them's more like guidelines than yer actual rules.

If he wasn't having a good time, he shouldn't stay, even if the DM IS acting in good faith.

Agreed. Miserable players are no fun for anyone.

There was a time when I was invited by some guys I met at a game store to play in their game. I showed up to the game and quickly discovered they play a game filled with comedy and puns. Like Xanth level comedy and puns, but without a setting built around it. They were just a goofy group.

Our games are full of comedy, although more like Pratchett than Piers Xanthony. But tone is another matter, and falls within the the social contract that once established everyone agrees to abide by it.

 

[TwoSix]

I personally have never eaten a single playstyle that tasted good.

I recommend the curry pineapple railroad.

 

[Emerikol]

I'm not changing back and forth. You telling me that you misunderstood what I said doesn't mean that I was equivocating.

I mean, I've not said anything about talking to Orcs in bars. You are debating an example I gave where the GM narrated the town, the Kobold attacks, the Kobold that our PCs captured and tried to interrogate, etc. This has nothing to do with stance or with "narrative control" or whatever other terminology you want to use. It's about the fact that the GM narrated consequences of our action declarations that we, as players, did not accept as part of the shared fiction of the game.

If you say "I interrogate the Kobold for information" and the DM says "You get nothing" then that is it. The DM controls the NPCs. You don't. You are trying to control something that is not your character. You said what you did and the DM said what the kobold did. You are trying to change the underlying fiction established by the DM when he created the adventure or campaign setting.

 

[pemerton]

It doesn't sound like you made much effort to pointing out the issue you had. How did the DM respond to what you did say?

You're asking me to recall a conversation from early in 1990 - so nearly 35 years ago. No doubt you have diary entries and file notes for all the RPG sessions you played back then, but I'm relying on my tired old brain!

I mean it's obvious that the GM didn't respond satisfactorily, given that his players departed en masse. I vaguely recall him trying to protest about the meaning of Average (Low) intelligence, but have no memory of the details.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Heh, I have never played chess with an "umpire". What exactly does one do? Make sure a player doesnt cheat while the other isnt looking?

Yes, and you you would be amazed how much cheating goes on in chess. Any tournament, even at school chess club level, has umpires, and it's a difficult job.

 

[Maxperson]

I recommend the curry pineapple railroad.

On pizza?