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.

 

[Lanefan]

In 5e, such talk about a "DM dictator" isnt a thing. This notion of a DM saying "my way or the highway" didnt age well, and didnt survive into the D&D of future generations.

Shrug...I think the notion has aged just fine.

The application of said notion may not have aged as well due to a general trend toward rejection of authority, but that's another can o' worms entirely.

 

[Mort]

Does it say the same thing in thex2014 PH? Either way, I'm not happy to hear it literally says the DMs job is to serve the players needs.

Basically, but in much more "The DM should be fair...," and the DM should the take the players fun not just into account but put it at the forefront.

But with that, it does absolutely nothing to change the roles and structure that D&D has always had between the players and the DM.

It's basically a well written piece that boils down to "Yes the power structure is not even, but you, the DM, shouldn't be a jerk about it."

 

[pemerton]

If the players* drop the GM and carry on the campaign from in-game point X, meanwhile the GM also carries the campaign on from the same in-game point X, IMO the "true" campaign is almost certain to be the one with the same GM.

But you've given no reason. This is just a stipulation by you, an arbitrary definition of "true campaign".

 

[ezo]

It does say that. To be pedantic: "You [the DM] must "serve" the fun of the "group [of players]".

"Adjudicate the Rules. You oversee how the group uses the game’s rules, making sure the rules serve the group’s fun."

No, that is you reading your agenda into it.

The group INCLUDES the DM. They are there to have fun, too, aren't they? According to you, it seems that they aren't if it is at the expense of the players' fun.

Also, please stop misquoting it:

Adjudicate the Rules. You oversee how the group uses the game’s rules, making sure the rules serve the group’s fun.

"MAKING SURE THE RULES SERVE"-- RULES, RULES, RULES!!! See that?

The DM does not "serve" the players as you continue to enjoy claiming. Nothing about the narrative here (like the DM running the NPC kobold as dumb) or about the DM preferences not counting towards their fun as part of the group.

Here, the "group" of players is people other than "you" the DM.

You have no evidence to support that conclusion at all.

If it meant that, it would have said... "making sure the rules serve the rest of the group's fun."

But, thankfully, it doesn't say that.

 

[Lanefan]

Being able to take actions through one's PC doesn't stop the game being a railroad. It's about how the consequences/results of those actions are established.

I mean, I've given an example: we as players were able to capture and speak to the Kobold. The game was still a railroad, due to the way the GM established consequences of our attempted interrogation.

Would your opinion be different had the GM decided that the Kobold you were interrogating a) happened to know far more than a typical Kobold might and b) was more than happy to spill this info to you?

 

[Lanefan]

2024 does say that: "You [the DM]" must "serve" the fun of the "group [of players]".

The dispute comes when you add the "[of players]" clause to "group" rather than allowing "group" to include the DM herself.

"Adjudicate the Rules. You oversee how the group uses the game’s rules, making sure the rules serve the group’s fun."

The DM needs to have fun too. But the responsibility of the DM is to make sure the players are having fun.

And whose responsibility is it to make sure the DM is having fun?

 

[Yaarel]

@ezo

I had edited that post.

The DM needs to have fun too. But the responsibility of the DM is make sure the players are having fun.

 

[Lanefan]

But you've given no reason. This is just a stipulation by you, an arbitrary definition of "true campaign".

Arbitrary definitions are all we have to work with on this one.

 

[Yaarel]

And whose responsibility is it to make sure the DM is having fun?

The DM has fun by negotiating a setting and a style that everyone enjoys, including the DM.

 

[Lanefan]

The DM has fun by negotiating a setting and a style that everyone enjoys.

Some might see the bolded as fun in itself, sure; but for many that's just the not-fun work required in order to get to the fun.