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]

It does come up though.

Heck, just this last Sunday I accidentally messed up a fireball area of effect (my overlay had the size wrong and the radius was doubled) which would have caused it to hit 4 PCs instead of the 2 it should have. One of the players caught it, and I immediately corrected.

Point is, as long as it's quick, I'm happy to correct. I just don't want to get into a long meta discussion (rules or situation) that takes away from the game - that needs to happen when the game is done.

I didn't mean to imply otherwise. Nobody is correct all the time.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is possible, of course. But I think, in context of the original use in this thread by @Manbearcat , that wouldn’t seem to be the case. He even went on to clarify it’s a perfectly fine way to play which although he doesn’t like to run games that way, will happily play in them.

Now, aside from that… I think that when viewed in the larger context of this discussion, and the comments about the setting being the DM’s and players not being allowed/expected to contribute to the shared fiction of play… sometimes an outright rejection of the idea that the fiction is shared… then I think it certainly can seem like a description that implies passivity on the part of the players.

Though if that’s the case, I don’t think it’s the label that should change. Rather, the expectation that the players be passive needs to change. That the focus of play not be the setting, but the characters. That the players not be limited in what they can contribute to play, or in how they can impact the setting.

So your personal preference is that the characters are more important than the setting? You should just say that.

 

[hawkeyefan]

(* And like it or not stuff like "setting tourism" and "GM storytime come across as such. You know this, you've been told this before.)

And you’ve been told it’s not meant that way.

Wouldn’t it be cool if instead of shutting a conversation down due to some perceived offense we actually discussed the topic?

This is especially galling because you go on to make this appeal…

(and please take this in the kind and constructive spirit it is honestly intended):

Can’t you do the same?

I'm sure there is a lot of reflexive antagonism on these boards, but part of the reason why your posts in particular often get misinterpreted is the way you post. You express yourself in unnecessarily opaque and convoluted manner. Like I said, I like to hear your ideas, but it is often a chore trying to decipher them.

So “setting tourism” is offensive but the above is not?

Come on, man.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If you’ve decided that the Maltese Falcon that the players steal is a fake, then yes, you’ve largely pre-authored the outcome of the players attempt to steal the Maltese Falcon.

Failure is built in.

Now, could this example be mitigated in some way? Yes, possibly. But based on the limited example you gave, it certainly seems like you’ve pre-authored the outcome.

Any time the players attempt a reasonable action, and the DM makes a decision that determines that action fails, I’d say that’s potentially problematic.

This opinion I think comes from a desire to prioritize creating a narratively satisfying story over exploring a setting not designed to specifically cater to the player's desires. That is of course fine, but it shouldn't be considered a general assumption IMO.

If I'm wrong about your motivation please forgive me.

 

[Oofta]

This is possible, of course. But I think, in context of the original use in this thread by @Manbearcat , that wouldn’t seem to be the case. He even went on to clarify it’s a perfectly fine way to play which although he doesn’t like to run games that way, will happily play in them.

Now, aside from that… I think that when viewed in the larger context of this discussion, and the comments about the setting being the DM’s and players not being allowed/expected to contribute to the shared fiction of play… sometimes an outright rejection of the idea that the fiction is shared… then I think it certainly can seem like a description that implies passivity on the part of the players.

Though if that’s the case, I don’t think it’s the label that should change. Rather, the expectation that the players be passive needs to change. That the focus of play not be the setting, but the characters. That the players not be limited in what they can contribute to play, or in how they can impact the setting.

What does "characters should be the focus" mean? When I DM there are events going on, frequently more than what the PCs can pursue. I'll adjust actions and reactions of NPCs and organizations based on what the PCs accomplish, there is frequently a ripple effect to what the PCs accomplish or don't accomplish.

But the players are still only in control of their PCs. Cities have been saved, regions have fallen because of what the PCs did or did not do, because of their choices. All of the world building stuff doesn't always impact them directly, at least not right away. But I will take note, add things to the backlog, think about what happened because they gave half of a McGuffin to someone they barely knew. May not even impact the current campaign but it could impact the next.

Are the PCs the focus at any given campaign moment? Of course. Are they the center of the universe? No.

 

[Micah Sweet]

How is a kobold who can provide no information neutral?

How is a locked door introduced on the fly during a chase scene that then results in the chase ending neutral?

How is a relic revealed to be false after it is stolen neutral?

Whether the DM decided these things in the moment or weeks before during prep, they are not neutral. Even if they “make sense for the setting” and so on… they are decisions the DM makes that clearly have an impact on outcomes in the game. Many things may make sense in a setting.

A kobold having information about its recent actions and the number of companions it has… makes sense.

An unlocked door… makes sense. Or even a locked door that can potentially be picked BEFORE the pursuers catch up… makes sense.

A stolen relic turning out to be authentic… makes sense.

And why should all those things default to being in the player's favor? Just because they could?

 

[Emerikol]

How is a kobold who can provide no information neutral?

How is a locked door introduced on the fly during a chase scene that then results in the chase ending neutral?

Well if there was a locked door there already. I think whether the DM planned it in advance or just whipped it up matters a lot.

How is a relic revealed to be false after it is stolen neutral?

Whether the DM decided these things in the moment or weeks before during prep, they are not neutral. Even if they “make sense for the setting” and so on… they are decisions the DM makes that clearly have an impact on outcomes in the game. Many things may make sense in a setting.

Your last sentence is right and if the DM planned it that way then it is entirely fair. It really comes down to frequency that something like this happens. If every single time something is a fake then of course that is bad. But sometimes in reality something is fake and that makes total sense.

A kobold having information about its recent actions and the number of companions it has… makes sense.

To me this could go either way in isolation. Neither affronts my sensibilities.

An unlocked door… makes sense. Or even a locked door that can potentially be picked BEFORE the pursuers catch up… makes sense.

I think the locked door is fine if it was always there. The DM is not expected to handwave away locked doors anymore than handwave them into existence.

A stolen relic turning out to be authentic… makes sense.

Either makes sense. If you are watching it in a movie, you don't think "No way this is not possible."

 

[TiQuinn]

On 1, it was my first on the fly thought and he was into it. As a general rule of thumb it's easy to get power by diving into the dark side of evil but the cost is the evil itself. Makes it easy to revisit any initial "oh I shouldn't have given out that"

On 2 the feel I got was that the capital E Evil involved and carried was just the excuse for not getting a 10gp "imp or cute owl". He expected more support from the table and a willingness to continue carrying it for a spectator. The next campaign he played a chain pact warlock.. you can guess how that went.

On3 worse, he did that while trying to pin the blame on me in a way that expected something else. I'm sure that we've all seen or heard of the "oh man that's an awesome great word, too bad it's not a great axe since I'm specialized in those" times where a gm forgot and admits they thought he used great swords while making it an axe" type things, he expected to bully such an outcome into being.

Can’t be a mind reader. If the player doesn’t attempt to collaborate on a concept, they can’t be surprised when it doesn’t work out the precise way they want.

I mean, personally, I think some skeletal demon as a familiar would be pretty effin cool.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Yes and as I've said many times, I'm fine with actions from actor stance. I do something to see what will happen. In a fantasy game, I do though expect sometimes when I do something it may not turn out as I expect. I don't get out of shape if when I try to open the door it won't budge. I assume there is something keeping it shut. I react to my input from the world. I don't act crazy and say what the world (the DM) is telling me is wrong.

But what if it’s clear from the context that the DM made their decision just to thwart your idea? They didn’t use any kind of mechanics, didn’t roll a die or consult a map or a table… they just decided that your reasonable action failed?

I don’t think it’s “acting crazy” to question that. Or, in extreme cases where it’s happened a lot or you expect it to be the norm, to leave the game.

Well your initial presentation of this problem was poorly done. That is a bad DM. Leave that DM. I still don't surround him with the player committee and try to force another resolution. That DM just gets fired.

That’s what happened in this case. However, I would say that the response need not be so extreme. I have, as a player, questioned a GM’s decision. I’ve likewise been questioned by players when I GM. And in both cases, there have been times where an adjustment was made by the GM. Where they realized they had made a mistake.

Your view that anything of the sort is a “rebellion” is extreme and unnecessary. You can have perfectly fun and functional games that include this type of dynamic.

 

[Emerikol]

For my style of play, the players will have this feeling if they triumph....
1. They mostly earned it through skilled play and it was not given to them.
2. They may have gotten lucky but if so it was the luck of the dice which is true in game luck.
3. The world wasn't about them but they changed the world and hopefully if good they made it a better place.