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.

 

[Vaalingrade]

This is beside the point. The discussion is about the rare bad DM and abusing authority. It's not about who cares.

I'd argue it's more about a cultural meme ('Rule 0' as it is expressed, not as it is written) that grants authority where it's not needed and encourages the abuse of the authority it grants.

 

[Yaarel]

It just means that you can't play a warforged in my world because they don't exist.

For what it is worth, a Warforged is the easiest to reflavor, such as "Wood Golem", or an "Animate Suit of Armor".

 

[Maxperson]

I'd argue it's more about a cultural meme ('Rule 0' as it is expressed, not as it is written) that grants authority where it's not needed and encourages the abuse of the authority it grants.

That last part is where I see the vast majority of people in favor of Rule 0 disagree. It's existence doesn't encourage abuse. Nothing about it says, "Hey, you should abuse this authority." Encouragement is proactive, not passive. There is no encouragement of abuse in Rule 0.

 

[Yaarel]

I'd argue it's more about a cultural meme ('Rule 0' as it is expressed, not as it is written) that grants authority where it's not needed and encourages the abuse of the authority it grants.

I suspect 3.5 discontinued the phrase "Rule 0", for exactly this reason, as in game culture it quickly gained a completely different meaning beyond the original meaning of "homebrew character options". That game culture meaning came across as toxic.

 

[Oofta]

For what it is worth, a Warforged is the easiest to reflavor, such as "Wood Golem", or an "Animate Suit of Armor".

Neither of which I would want in my game. I run campaigns in a persistent ongoing world so it's not just one exception. It's one exception and then another and yet another. I do occasionally make exceptions, I had a Aasimar in my last campaign and in a 4E I had a Deva. Heck I even had a goliath. But all three just passed as human and I had backstories about where they came from.

My world is less high fantasy than some games, so having the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz just doesn't work for me.

 

[tetrasodium]

For what it is worth, a Warforged is the easiest to reflavor, such as "Wood Golem", or an "Animate Suit of Armor".

Warforge have ton of lore & history attached. Be ready to fit Cannith, Creation Forges, The Last War & so on. Heck have fun with comments about how elemental airships & lightning rails are common back home or how they are so much better than things balloon travel &steam trains if you have those & they happen to come up too.

All of that without even touching on their "childhood" or the societal implications that That horrorfest of warcrimes & torture requires.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

For what it is worth, a Warforged is the easiest to reflavor, such as "Wood Golem", or an "Animate Suit of Armor".

It's a matter of tone, not lore. There is no place for magic robot PCs of any kind in a gritty low magic campaign. It's like trying to shoehorn C-3PO into Game of Thrones. You could explain it (a wizard did it) but it would still be terribad.

 

[Maxperson]

I suspect 3.5 discontinued the phrase "Rule 0", for exactly this reason, as in game culture it quickly gained a completely different meaning beyond the original meaning of "homebrew character options". That game culture meaning came across as toxic.

It didn't discontinue Rule 0. Rule 0 was present in 3e, 3.5, 1e, 2e, 5e, basic, and probably 4e. Just because it didn't have the official Rule 0 name doesn't mean that it wasn't there and in just as full force.

 

[Vaalingrade]

That last part is where I see the vast majority of people in favor of Rule 0 disagree. It's existence doesn't encourage abuse. Nothing about it says, "Hey, you should abuse this authority." Encouragement is proactive, not passive. There is no encouragement of abuse in Rule 0.

The problem with authority is what people will do to keep it should it be threatened. Even at this scale it's a problem.

It says 'you have this authority and you are the final arbiter of it' and then the natural result of authority kicks in because it's your way or the highway.

Then the culture comes in and starts telling you that you need to fight to keep it. You deserve it after all. You do the work It's your world. Anyone that challenges that is the problem. They need to be shouted down. They need to be stopped. They need to be excised.

 

[Yaarel]

It didn't discontinue Rule 0. Rule 0 was present in 3e, 3.5, 1e, 2e, 5e, basic, and probably 4e. Just because it didn't have the official Rule 0 name doesn't mean that it wasn't there and in just as full force.

Sure, the reference to "houserule character options" continues on, even now in 2024.

However the buzzword "rule zero" was swatted, pretty much immediately. It immediately became problematic. People were repurposing the buzzword in toxic ways.