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.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

For me, a GM who insisted on "rule zero" in the hardcore/"absolute power" sense that some are advocating in this thread, would ring alarm bells: it's like they don't trust their chosen game system, or the other people they are playing with, to reliably produce cool, awesome, exciting and/or memorable stuff. To me it would imply that they think that only they can do that, and that the contributions of others are a potential threat which they need to reserve the power to shut down.

I indeed trust myself to better understand what sort of game is fun and engaging to me and my friends than some game designer that has never met any of us and knows nothing of us! I of course endeavour to choose a system that is at least close to what we want to achieve, but some modding and jury-rigging to personalise the experience for our needs is almost always beneficial.
And I also trust my player, my friends, to produce interesting and memorable stuff in the game, and they consistently do that.
I however do not expect them to understand the setting I have created, and in which there are secrets they do not know, better than me.

The second relevance comes out of Baker's final paragraph that I have quoted. Some posts in this thread seem to assume that it is fine, in RPGing, for the participants to have wildly different view about what is cool, awesome, exciting and/or memorable; and that it is the job of the GM to run over the top of that and impose their own view of the cool, awesome, exciting and memorable. To me, that seems to be a recipe for bad, unsatisfying play. As a RPGer, I play with people who, when the say stuff that they think is cool, awesome, exciting and/or memorable, are saying stuff that I also think is cool, awesome, exciting and/or memorable.

I don't recall anyone saying that, but then again, long thread. I think most people would agree that the first step for a successful game is to have group of people who are at least roughly on the same page about what they want the game to be like (i.e. what is "cool" or "exiting.")

 

[ezo]

See, there's the disconnect.

If a friend of mine pulled that I'd call them on it and if they're a good friend, they'd reconsider their social faux pas, then we'd all watch a movie we can agree on.

Us being a group of friends, the others would similarly notice and have my back on it.

There's a reason why in our group everyone has DMed while a few know they're not going to be given another chance until they regain trust.

Sorry, I thought the scenario was we are watching their movie. I had already moved past the call them on it and negotiation phase, and that decision had been made and was done. That's why I would just leave at that point.

However, frankly, if the person was a "real friend" of mine and knew my tastes, they'd never to that to begin with. The fact that your scenario also had them doing it implied to me "yeah, not really my friend, but just friendly" and I'd be better off without them given what they did.

But that is another point many people don't consider IMO. Some groups are "friends", others are "friendly", and others are "acquaintences". I play with people I am "friendly" with for the most part. Only one of the players is someone I would count as truly a friend, so my two groups are "friendly" for the most part but that's it.

It could be I just read a lot more into someone making it to the "friend" level that others do. We're all different so it wouldn't surprise me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If I were described as a cartoon villain, it would probably look something like this
View attachment 384039

Well, I'd certainly want to avoid that guy!

 

[Oofta]

Well, I'd certainly want to avoid that guy!

What, no Dominoes Death Disks for you? I mean, it's slightly better than Almost Pizza.

 

[clearstream]

The campaign is what has been established by the DM as true in the setting. So if the DM has created ten countries in a particular area of the setting that is now campaign information. Some but not all of that may be provided early in the game and the rest might be discovered later. For example, imagine Gygax has detailed out a basic outline of the world of Greyhawk. He has a lot of detail around Greyhawk, such as city details etc..., and as you circle out he just has gazateer knowledge. Though in honesty even my gazateer knowledge is vastly more than is offered by the Greyhawk setting.

As we expand on this, it feels like we're identifying the campaign as an institution rather than a game. So there may be members of the institution granted authority over references that are assumed to be incorporated into games played within its bounds. That needn't be DMs. We had a long running institution for DragonQuest, inspired by the contents of Chapter 9 "Adventure" and the implications of the Adventurer's Guild and its eponymous Contract. A formal record of membership was kept, various laws governed the progress of player characters from game to game (with a constantly changing rota of DMs), and persons other than DMs took significant roles in detailing the game world. Members could be players in some sessions, DMs in others.

I believe that what you identify with the label "the campaign" is an institution. The authority you are supposing vested in the DM is vested in that institution, and it is players' tacit membership of it that leads them to agree with whoever is for the time being entrusted to contribute imagined world facts. You mention "gazeteer knowledge": it is common for DM and players to adopt a canon established by world designers. They accordingly go on to agree imagined facts such as that there exists the port of Hardby at the head of Woolly Bay. Probably you'd be prepared to concede that a group - DM and players - may decide that Hardby does not exist in their version of Greyhawk. Showing that even what is imagined for the institution of "the campaign" is subject to ongoing agreement.

Every bit of that is the campaign. As the players move through the world gathering knowledge and impacting events, the setting changes or grows and that information is added to the setting thus changing the campaign. It is highly unlikely that any PC will ever know everything about the setting. A campaign set in Keoland is likely not going to care about what happens in the Great Kingdom. And I'm using Greyhawk to make the explanation easier. I almost always do my own setting. Nowadays always.

It's highly unlikely any DM will ever know everything about Greyhawk. In fact, it's an impossibility, seeing as imagined facts have no obvious bounds. There is no real Greyhawk to serve as a definitive anchor for them... to rule in that Hardby stands at the head of the Bay, while the City of Minarets locals know as Pantoufle does not exist. There are only various overlapping institutions that one may make oneself member of.

The DM is the keeper of the official record of the campaign. For example, when the PCs defeat some evil that leaves a power vacuum and that means other forces will move in reaction to those events. All kinds of NPCs might be making decisions based on what the PCs did. The PCs don't know everything happening. They may see some aspects of it but they don't know that the collapse of a goblin stronghold is going to result in better farming output along the borderlands. I'm just making up examples don't take them too seriously other than as illustrations.

My argument is not that the norm (DM world authority) is unmotivated - here you lay out two pragmatic motives; the convenience of an "official" record (one that everyone decides to agree is true), and the possible benefits of appointing someone to extraploate from what characters do - it is that said norm is not grounded ontologically. Nothing is true in play just because DM imagines it, it only becomes true given its acceptance by everyone at the table. But this has all been said before.

The DM doesn't know the players motives or thoughts I agree but other than that the DM knows everything else whereas the players only have a slice. They may individually not even have the same slice.

What I was gesturing toward is that players needn't be limited to a slice. They can go as far as they want. DM is only one person at the table. Norms and institutions we've tacitly opted into may mean that in this time and place, we've granted DM control of colours of hats. Seeing as play is voluntary, we may always rescind it.

 

[Maxperson]

If that wasn't their intent, why did they use it repeatedly?

Like, if this had been one or two posters, one time, and they had even made an effort to disavow such a thing no matter how minimal, maybe I could see it! But they have not. Far from it. As noted, this is five different posters each presenting the idea in their own way. How can that possibly be "well they clearly MEANT it as something much more mild, they just all kept SAYING it in inflammatory language they themselves dislike and wish people wouldn't use." That's nonsense!

And yet we have all or almost all said that we want the players to have fun and that we take the players into consideration. I personally have said multiple times to multiple people that the who "dictator" and "absolute power" thing is just because we don't really have a more accurate description to use and those two are not fully accurate.

Both dictators and absolute power rely on power over people, which DMs do not have. We only have power over the game. If you can come up with a term that gives full authority over the game, yet is not "dictator," "absolute power," or any other term that implies power over people, I'd love to hear it.

Until then we have imperfect terms which people seem to love to take out of context in order to make DMs seem like power thirsty madmen out to lord that power over players at every turn.

 

[Maxperson]

Happy to spill info - yes, given that we were attempting an interrogation.

Happened to know more - that would depend very much on what this additional information was, and why the GM was introducing it.

It seems odd to me that either one of you are talking about the kobold "knowing more" when no one, even you, knows what it knew in the first place. Assuming the DM didn't tell you outside of the game what the kobold knew.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

There have been many, many articles about how D&D is a good for your mental health and is often used to help people overcome social issues. The idea that because the DM is the final arbiter of the rules and narrator of the result of the PCs actions is somehow this twisted power relationship you seem to imagine simply has no support.

DM making the final call may not be a style that works for you but it has worked as a core process of the game for millions of people for half a century. In my experience it doesn't add stress to the game for most people, it helps them sit back and relax. It gives a certainty to the game and how it is run, especially when playing with people you may not know very well. In any game with the relatively complex rule structure and situational openness of D&D is going to occasionally have disagreements. Someone has t make the final call despite your trying to weasel out of answering the question, and I greatly prefer that we know when we sit down to the game that it's the DM. Because let's face it, when you get 7 people at a table there's bound to be difference of opinions and what a certain rule means.

Obviously there are disruptive or players, bad eggs. But in games I've played in where there was someone that made the game less enjoyable? It was almost always a fellow player. Thank goodness we had a DM (or I was that DM) with a role of authority to deal with the issue. In the rare occasion that the DM is that bad egg? The player always has the option to walk.

I thought you were done having a conversation on this topic with me?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And yet we have all or almost all said that we want the players to have fun and that we take the players into consideration. I personally have said multiple times to multiple people that the who "dictator" and "absolute power" thing is just because we don't really have a more accurate description to use and those two are not fully accurate.

That...is kind of strange, given how hard I worked to get you to use literally any other phrase and you adamantly refused to do so, repeatedly. Like, there is a reason I cite this in later threads. I tried, over and over, to get you to accept LITERALLY anything else, and you refused.

Both dictators and absolute power rely on power over people, which DMs do not have. We only have power over the game.

If you think having power over a game someone is playing in isn't in any way power over those people, you have a very odd idea of what "power" means. Just ask anyone playing a sport. That's also a game.

If you can come up with a term that gives full authority over the game, yet is not "dictator," "absolute power," or any other term that implies power over people, I'd love to hear it.

Perhaps the fact that you cannot find such a term should be a warning sign to you that there isn't one? That such a thing isn't a distinction in the first place?

Until then we have imperfect terms which people seem to love to take out of context in order to make DMs seem like power thirsty madmen out to lord that power over players at every turn.

I would stop "taking them out of context"--which apparently now includes full post quotes, because I've done that in this very thread--if people would stop insisting on the terms extremely strongly when I push against them. Because that's happened. Many times now. I gave up asking for people to relent, because they explicitly and persistently refused to do so. You, specifically, were one of those people.

 

[Maxperson]

Man, this thread just gains pages at a time.

Because that's what we evil powerthirsty DMs feed our dragons before siccing them on the PCs.