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.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Haven't read the starter sets? Latest one is about as good as it gets for a new DM.

It's an art form not a science.

Still don't understand why the starter set isn't good enough anymore.

 

[Maxperson]

I know. I was there. For reasons I don't understand, you (and others) are projecting your ignorance of something you weren't part of onto me, who was a participant in the episode.

I've been one of the few defending you.

 

[Zardnaar]

Still don't understand why the starter set isn't good enough anymore.

New ones are pretty good. I've reread some old ones as well. They're not that different 25 years later.

 

[Micah Sweet]

New ones are pretty good. I've reread some old ones as well. They're not that different 25 years later.

I know. But it seems WotC has decided starter sets aren't for on boarding new DMs and players anymore, so I'm really wondering what they are for.

 

[tetrasodium]

a sully reason to dodo by itself.

Is that some kinda Aussie slang or typo?

 

[abirdcall]

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 loathe reskinning.

The mechanics should be tied to representing things in the story.

Otherwise the game loses a lot of appeal for me. It's a really clunky and long strategy game so I only care about the mechanics as they represent ideas. If the mechanics could be anything then they don't mean anything.

 

[Vaalingrade]

but just try to play the game without anyone taking up this 'voluntary' position

That still doesn't make that person more important than the rest of the group.

It is possible for someone to DM and just... like respect the other players and not try to impose their will on them and their characters.

 

[Zardnaar]

I know. But it seems WotC has decided starter sets aren't for on boarding new DMs and players anymore, so I'm really wondering what they are for.

Veiled edition warring. 5E 2014 is about the best wotc edition for new players.

C&C is better imho along with B/X clones using ascending ACs. Acquired tastes though.

Had similar conversation recently showing my players. They know I've been doing it a while. Ones run CoS.

Held up basic fantasy in one hand with KotBL. Basically what I learnt on.

Then held up the 5E core books, gave them to a 13 year old told him you have 10 minutes to make a character. It got a laugh which was the point.

 

[Zardnaar]

Is that some kinda Aussie slang or typo?

It's a phone that's probably going to get smashed post Christmas.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

What's your evidence base for thinking I'm wrong about what took place, that Friday night in Melbourne around early March 1990?

I made my concerns largely available in a prior post, to which you responded. And are mostly connected to how your presented your argument.

You simply didn't give enough information, and just expected people to agree with your assessment, because they were not there. You even said as much in a post I replied to previously, quoted here;

What amazes me is how quickly you and other posters are to leap to the defence of a terrible game and terrible GM about which you know nothing except for my report that it was terrible.

Where you in no uncertain terms tell us we should say it's terrible, because you say it's terrible. Suggesting that we should demonize someone because you tell us they are worth demonizing.

You later clarified here;

Not remotely. To be honest I took it for granted that people would agree that it was terrible GMing - it strike me as self-evidently so even in the description of it, and moreso when the only person who participated in the episode, who is clearly a very experienced player and GM of RPGs, described it as such.

Specifically with this;

"when the only person who participated in the episode, who is clearly a very experienced player and GM of RPGs, described it as such"

Doubling down on the only reasonable course of action was us blindly agreeing with your assessment. You continued;

My reason for telling the story was to provide an example that refutes the claim that the GM has "absolute power" to establish shared fiction. Because it shows how that can fail - that is, how the players can reject a proposal from the GM with the result that it does not become part of the shared fiction. In the story I told, the shared fiction collapsed completely. If the GM had cared to save the game, then of course he could have withdrawn his proposed fiction and gone with something that fit within expectations of how Kobolds, warfare, interrogation etc work in AD&D.

But the bit that amazes me is that I have a thread full of posters saying the GM has absolute power, but the player is free to leave and then, when a player tells a story of leaving, nearly all of those posters say the player ought not to have left!

And here I feel you finally got to where we agree, and where I disagree with many in this thread. The player should always leave when they are not enjoying themselves.

But then you go back to this, as quoted above;

What's your evidence base for thinking I'm wrong about what took place, that Friday night in Melbourne around early March 1990?

Where from my reading, you are telling me that I had no grounds to disagree because I wasn't there. And therefore I should take your word as truth and your judgement as flawless.

I agree with the outcome. You should 100% leave that game. But I feel you made the argument in a way that was uncompelling. Where I felt, at every turn, talked down to and told that my opinion didn't matter because I wasn't there and you told me otherwise.

I agree with your outcome. I think you presented the case poorly.