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.

 

[Emerikol]

What if it’s a one shot?

Then it was probably done for comedic effect. Who cares about treasure in a one shot? Treasure is only good if you get to spend it in the next session.

 

[hawkeyefan]

They only fail if they decide to steal it. Once they do steal it, perhaps they can turn it into a win and use it as a trap because other parties still believe it's real. On the other hand the PCs don't have perfect knowledge of the world. Sometimes I drop multiple hints they don't pick up on, sometimes the McGuffin is a forgery.



I disagree. If they always fail? That's an issue. But there are no guarantees in life or in games. Something like not getting a treasure will be minor in the big picture. If a player can't handle the occasional setback then I'm not the right DM for them. The world doesn't have 100% transparency, sometimes allies are spies. I am less likely to enjoy playing a game where I am never surprised by an outcome. Whether that outcome is positive or negative.

It's about balance of course. But having the unexpected happen? That's a big part of the game for me.

Again, it’s not about players not being able to handle failure. It’s about when no mechanics are used to determine the outcome of an uncertain action, when the DM just decides how the uncertain thing goes.

 

[Manbearcat]

On adversarial GMing:

Adversarial GMing is not, in-and-of-itself, some terrible thing. What is terrible is when adversarial GMing coincides with players having a compromised sense of how the gamestate moves from this state to that state.

That_sucks.

So if the principles and play priorities that undergird what the hell we're all doing in the first place aren't clear...if the rules, procedures, action resolution, and incentive structures aren't clear or aren't stable...if the nature (stakes, prospective lines of play, etc) of a decision-point isn't clear...if a particular consequence-spaces isn't clear...if advancement scheme or authority distribution are suddenly turned on their head...

That_is when adversarial GMing becomes a problem.

And the horror stories we've all heard or witnessed for decades are when adversarial GMing meets the above play dynamics.

I mean...nearly every game I GM is designed to be adversarial in nature. I'm the opposition. I'm pushing back hard. I'm trying to make PC lives dangerous and difficult...I'm trying to suss out what they're made of and who they are. I'm trying to suss out if the player can "turn this thing around" or not.

And its not like I'm soft or meek as a GM. I set things up to punish...and I follow through. PCs do not escape the abundance of games that I run "intact" (for any given value of intact).

But players don't have a compromised sense of how the gamestate moves from this state to that state. They know how the gamestate moves and they know that will remain stable and in-line with the particular system we're playing. So we don't sweat how hard I push or, put another way, how adversarial I am as a GM.

 

[hawkeyefan]

But it is not pre-authored that the Maltese Falcon the players try to steal is a fake. It is pre-authored, that there is a Maltese Falcon, and it is fake. Then the players decide to steal it.

if it is true that 1) the players are free to set goals 2) there is pre-authored facts all of which are not know to the players, then it follows that players can set a goal that is impossible to achieve, leading to an automatic failure.

This is why I said there could be other factors that mitigate it. This is why these hypotheticals can be tough to discuss.

But many folks never seem to want to offer actual examples from their own play… so they’re all we often tend to get.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What if it’s a one shot?

If it were me, I'd finish the session, thank them, and not come back.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I mean...nearly every game I GM is designed to be adversarial in nature. I'm the opposition. I'm pushing back hard. I'm trying to make PC lives dangerous and difficult...I'm trying to suss out what they're made of and who they are. I'm trying to suss out if the player can "turn this thing around" or not.

I don't think this is what is generally meant or understood by adversarial GMing.

 

[hawkeyefan]

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

I have! Often and vigorously!

My point now is that when the setting takes precedence over the characters, I think that the description of “setting tourism” fits. And I don’t see how anyone can see it as problematic when it literally describes what they want out of play.

 

[hawkeyefan]

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.

What I prefer most of the time (though not all… I like different types of games) would be for that kind of dynamic not really be present. I like when we keep in mind that we’re playing a game… so if I feel like the win condition (even a short term one) has been rigged in some way, then that’s not going to be satisfying play.

I honestly think the opposite, actually. Determining ahead of time that the relic the players have decided to steal is a fake is setting up a particular narrative.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I have! Often and vigorously!

My point now is that when the setting takes precedence over the characters, I think that the description of “setting tourism” fits. And I don’t see how anyone can see it as problematic when it literally describes what they want out of play.

Perhaps they want to explore and actively interact with, even change/make their mark on, the setting through the actions of their characters? I wouldn't describe that as "setting tourism".

 

[Crimson Longinus]

This is why I said there could be other factors that mitigate it. This is why these hypotheticals can be tough to discuss.

But many folks never seem to want to offer actual examples from their own play… so they’re all we often tend to get.

I mean, I really don't understand what is complicated about this. In my game the players certainly have several times searched or tried to perceive something that simply was not there. So they didn't find it there! I'm sure there could be more elaborate examples, but that's the most common one. Oh, they also tried to kill fire-based creatures with a fireball. Didn't work, because I had sneakily pre-authored them to be immune to fire! Seems like pretty normal and basic stuff to me.