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.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Again, not for every campaign.

certainly, warforged are not for every campaign, but i still think they're very possible for far more campaign worlds than what they're currently treated as.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

certainly, warforged are not for every campaign, but i still think they're very possible for far more campaign worlds than what they're currently treated as.

They (or something akin to them) certainly are the species that best work as one-off weirdo without culture and background that is often the result of inserting a character whose species was not planned as a part of the setting in such a setting. But in a case of some sort of experimental construct that is trying to learn what it is to be a person, that actually makes perfect sense! But that still is a theme that doesn't fit in every campaign, and relies on assumptions about the nature of magitech that do not work in every world.

 

[pemerton]

I agree it would be a mistake IF that DMing appear to not be in good faith---but it does for myself (and others I believe) as so we defend his right to DM as he wishes. Doing so doesn't make them a bad DM by any means IMO.


I don't think it was a screw up, either. At best, it is a difference in what kobolds should act like within the game, but barring other information I am inclined to think that is the case--I've yet to seen any information to the contrary.

This is an example of what baffles me - you think you know better than me what happened in an event 35 years ago that you were not party to, and that you have any knowledge of only because I have told you about it.

I can tell you now, all your conjectures about why this was wonderful GMing are false. The GM did not have some magnificent original vision of Kobolds, some cunning idea about their responses under interrogation, or anything else.

What actually happened was that the GM did not want the game to head in the direction we - the players - were taking it, of gathering intelligence and acting on that. And so he attempted to make up some fiction to ensure that wouldn't happen.

I say "attempted to make up" rather than "made up" because his attempt failed. What he wanted to achieve was a shared fiction along his preferred lines. What he actually achieved was that there was no shared fiction, because the game came to an end.

 

[pemerton]

Such things exist. To be defeated. No you can't play one.

Does this mean that PCs can't create animated armour, golems etc as their own guardians or servants?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think there is a lot more to this than a black and white, yes or no. I think reskinning is important and solves a lot of issues in regards to these issues. And largely makes the "but you shouldn't restrict races" argument a bit less compelling.

Some percentage of people, I'd argue a large majority, who ask to be a race are doing so for a reason that isn't connected to the lore of the race itself. Say a mechanical benefit or the feel of a mechanic the race has. It's only when its the race itself, and not it's components that it becomes an issue.

In your example it could be the fire breath of the dragonborn that a player is after. This is doable without allowing a dragonborn into the game. People on earth can use tricks, that dont use modern technology, to breath fire. Surely, in a world with magic, you could make that work.

If the other mechanics of the dragonborn make sense as well, all of a sudden you just reskin the race to an accepted one and happiness ensues. No one, likely, cares in that case that you are calling it a human, or made up fantasy race #437, because the player got what they wanted - a fire breath.

I think this is a really important "trick" in a DM's arsenal. And something players can suggest be explored. It solves the majority of player requests while leaving the DM's world largely as is. And it shows a willingness on both sides to respect the wishes of the other.

I believe this trick is why I simply never run into these issues with players.

I really don't like re-skinning. To me it puts the artifice of the game in the forefront of everyone's consciousness. I'd rather take the time and effort to make bespoke rules widgets.

 

[Vaalingrade]

"Being the DM is voluntary. Why can't the DM change to accomodate the player. The DM is not special and has no greater role than any player."

You say it sarcastically, but that's the reality.

 

[Zardnaar]

Does this mean that PCs can't create animated armour, golems etc as their own guardians or servants?

Depends on edition/DM.

Also difference between sentient being and mindless automaton.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I really don't like re-skinning. To me it puts the artifice of the game in the forefront of everyone's consciousness. I'd rather take the time and effort to make bespoke rules widgets.

Yeah, same. For Artra I rewrote the species rules and made bespoke rules for the species, even those that actually exist in other settings such as orcs. I think the humans were not significantly changed though.

 

[Vaalingrade]

What I’ve found is that most players of the “odd man out” really have no intentions of dealing with the consequences and will usually get huffy and quit or change to something more fitting for the game/world.

Considering the 'consequences' I keep seeing show up is being bullied and discriminated against in-game, they're right to react that way to a spiteful punishment for not doing what the DM wants.

 

[pemerton]

if the DM is the problem they can be kicked just as easily as any other player.

Yet this thread is full of posts arguing that I and my fellow players were wrong (overly hasty, disproportionate, etc) in leaving a game. And full of posts defending, as entirely justified, an episode of GMing about which their primary bit of information is that the one participant in it they have heard from has said it was terrible.

So I'm not sure what you mean by "easily", given this apparently very strong norm that players have a duty to sit through even terrible GMing.