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.

 

[Oofta]

The DM has an obligation to make the game fun for the players.

That may mean excluding a player who puts what they want to do ahead of the group.

I long ago realized that I can't please everyone. I do my best to please myself and the majority of players. But sometimes? Sometimes a player needs to change or just admit they aren't a good fit.

 

[Yaarel]

The DM has an obligation to make the game fun for the players.

That may mean excluding a player who puts what they want to do ahead of the group.

Excluding a player has nothing to do with game design.

The fact that socalled "rule zero" confuses social bullying and social exclusion with game rules is part of its toxicity.

 

[Mort]

For what it's worth, I don't allow people to play goblins either.

Sorry, but goblin bladesinger is best bladesinger

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I long ago realized that I can't please everyone. I do my best to please myself and the majority of players. But sometimes? Sometimes a player needs to change or just admit they aren't a good fit.

I suspect I would be expected not to play one of my usual morally dodgy Doctor Smith type characters in your game!

Not a problem, I know how to put the group ahead of my personal preference.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Excluding a player has nothing to do with game design.

No, it has to do with making sure everyone in the game has a good time.

 

[Zardnaar]

Excluding a player has nothing to do with game design.

The fact that "rule zero" confuses social bullying and social exclusion with game rules is part of its toxicity.

We get called tyrants if we remove players.

Recent campaigns (Norse) wasn't working. I closed it down and was looking at Eberron as a replacement. Advertised for new players.

Had fun going back to basics it was very noticeable to existing players.

So went back to new player friendly, back to basics, starter set beer and pretzels.

Cutting all the extra stuff was a massive improvement.

 

[Yaarel]

We get called tyrants if we remove players.

But if the go-to reflex is "my way or the highway", something is wrong. And it isnt the game. The game rules themselves are fairly nuanced, fair, and sensitive to everyone involved.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

But if the go-to reflex is "my way or the highway", something is wrong

The go-to reflex is that anyone who believes they are entitled to take part in the game irrespective of anyone else needs to be removed as soon as possible and as far away as possible.

 

[Yaarel]

The go-to reflex is that anyone who believes they are entitled to take part in the game irrespective of anyone else needs to be removed as soon as possible and as far away as possible.

What you describe applies to every form of social activity whatsoever, from grocery shopping to politics. It has nothing to do with D&D per se.

The fact is, socalled "rule zero" is this kind of dysfunctional self-entitlement.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Excluding a player has nothing to do with game design.

The fact that socalled "rule zero" confuses social bullying and social exclusion with game rules is part of its toxicity.

It really has nothing to do with rules. It is about making sure that everyone actually wants to play the same game. It is not exclusion or bullying and it is weird to suggest so.

If I say "I'm planning to run a Star Trek game set on a Federation starship, you interested?" And you respond, "Sure, I want to be a Wookie Jedi," then you actually didn't want to play a Star Trek game, did you?