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.

 

[clearstream]

They are still, as far as I can tell, an optional feature of the game [edit: since they show up in the DMG and not the PHB]. We won't know more until we have the DMG. I've always given my players a fair amount of leeway on how they spend their downtime, even if I do retain editorial control so their actions still fit in the overall campaign.

They seem more an extension of the character to me. The sort of thing players record on their character sheets as true.

I don't see bastions as anything more than an enhancement and structure for downtime activities. I assume there's still going to be overall DM control.

There was a video interview in which player control was emphasised.

 

[Oofta]

They seem more an extension of the character to me. The sort of thing players record on their character sheets as true.


There was a video interview in which player control was emphasised.

Since the bastion rules are in the DMG, they are still under the DM's control. Other than that I'm withholding judgement until I see the actual rules.

 

[Emerikol]

Extending this scenario to parallel that of the kobold, the DM tells you that the dragon finds you. It's that kind of a dragon.

It's interesting in this case to reflect on what a possible dice roll (e.g. ability check) does: it can assign a probability to what players imagine being authoritative (hiding). RAW leaves it to DM to call for a check, and if so allows them to set any DC they like. Thus, DM can tell you that what you imagine (hiding) is mistaken... you are not hidden and do not avoid the dragon.

Well that is within the DMs prerogative.

A dragon is a bad example in my world as they are as powerful as Gods and there are a very limited number of them. So having them as a wandering monster just isn't likely. I know were every single dragon is at in my world as there are that few. (or at minimum I know they are way off the map).

Maybe a band of Giants would be a better example as they are more common though hardly common. There are cases where you can spot an enemy like a situation where you are in the woods looking out into the plain where avoidance is easy. There are cases where the distance is great and both parties spot the other but escape is at least very possible. Then there are cases where you literally bump into each other due to terrain etc.. Each case is different.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

There are certainly atypical setups which I think is a strength of the game.

I agree.

In Out of the Abyss the drow are not meant to be all fought. It is actually a good lesson for new D&D players. You aren't supposed to just be able to fight and win against everything. This is valuable experience to have at low levels too because it makes levelling up more satisfying when they do start winning against those foes.

Yup. I ran that scene two or three times, and it was awesome every time at my table.

There is an inn scene in HotDQ where a guy disguised as a noble bullies the level 3 party. There are possible ways for the party to deal with it. The default is to just sleep in the barn. We had a player just join us who turned out to be a problem who just wanted to kill the noble for bullying them. I advised that they are just level 3 and forecasted his power but the player felt he was entitled to win as they were the heroes of the story and got very upset when he lost. That isn't the adventure's problem.

I wasn't pointing out any of these examples to criticize their story-building - I was pointing out that they don't follow what is typically thought of as "balanced encounters".

In the current campaign that I'm running there is a CR 18 creature in the first dungeon. If the players attack the creature they are in for a bad time. That doesn't mean the adventure is poorly designed. Attacking the creature is on the players.

Yeah, that's great stuff! Again - I've never once claimed that they cause the Adventure to be "poorly designed". We're talking about two different things. Honestly, I think following a rigid 6-8 encounters per day would be poor design. My saying that the Adventures DON'T FOLLOW THAT is not saying that they're poorly designed.

That's kind of my whole point.

 

[Mort]

There was a video interview in which player control was emphasised.

We'll have to see, but my bet is the player controls the bastion like they control their character. Meaning they say what they want to do, how they react to things done etc.

I don't expect it to be some big shift to player narrative control.

 

[clearstream]

If by game you mean only the play sessions, then yes. You've defined it that way though and I don't necessarily accept that definition. But by your definition I grant what you say.

I'm focusing on what is shared, i.e. exists in some version in the imagination of each participant not just one of them. That most vividly occurs in play during the session. Suppose players and DM are sharing campaign fiction outside of a session of play: any time DM has "campaign" fiction they hope to make shared, it is subject to acceptance and distortion.

The last is kind of interesting. I assume it is uncontentious that participants picture slightly different worlds. Say they all accept the hat is green, but one is picturing a fedora and the other a stetson... and as it happens they never mention that and it remains unreconciled. It doesn't matter in that case whether DM is picturing the stetson and player the fedora: both stand. That might become reconciled down the line

DM "She takes off her stetson"
Player "...fedora, you mean"
DM "Sure, she takes off her fedora"

Nothing troubling happens here just because the group accepts player's fiction into their conversation. Similarly

DM "The dragon sweeps down hunting for victims"
Players "We hide!"
DM "Sure, it whistles past overhead and continues on into the distance"

Upthread I mentioned that fiction asserted by players might be subject to game mechanics. TTRPG mechanics often give players fiats over parts of the shared fiction (typically dice rolls, but sometimes as direct assertions). When and to what extent can DM override those? I suspect that will unearth further norms about supposed DM authority.

 

[clearstream]

We'll have to see, but my bet is the player controls the bastion like they control their character. Meaning they say what they want to do, how they react to things done etc.

I think so too, although bastions will also contain NPCs...

 

[Emerikol]

Nothing troubling happens here just because the group accepts player's fiction into their conversation. Similarly

This may be what happens when it's a type of hat. It often isn't when it really impacts the game. The DMs "vision" of reality is what is real. I've been in those situations before where players thought one thing and the DM another. If their senses are obviously out of whack with their brain I will say "you don't think that is possible given the X is too high up" or something like that.

 

[Mort]

I think so too, although bastions will also contain NPCs...

I suspect the DMG will have any NPCs ultimately be the DMs responsibility.

Personally, I'm perfectly happy to extend control of the PCNPCs directly to the PCs themselves - much less of a headache for me. And Frankly, that's what I did the last time PCs had a stronghold, it worked quite well.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

We'll have to see, but my bet is the player controls the bastion like they control their character. Meaning they say what they want to do, how they react to things done etc.

I don't expect it to be some big shift to player narrative control.

I just watched a Ginny Di video on the bastions, and it said the characters need to issue commands to bastions or otherwise they will just do basic maintenance. And this requires either the character being there to issue commands, or being able to communicate over distance somehow. So there doesn't seem to be meta level narrative control, nor does the player directly play the bastion, they run it via their character. In fact, if the character doesn't contact the bastion for a long time, the NPCs working there will eventually just leave and abandon the bastion.