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]

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.

Not if that decision is made prior to the PCs deciding to steal it, IMO. Then it's just a thing that's true in the setting.

 

[Manbearcat]

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

I disagree.

I think it is. I just think the people who disagree automatically smuggle in Trad authority distribution, Trad action resolution dynamics, and Sim priorities such as "attempting to simulate the world being a living, breathing entity with multiple agents and forces all constantly and simultaneously influencing things and acting out their wills" whether they realize they're doing that smuggling or not.

As a result, they take "GM plays to win" and add-on "and they can do it (win) because they can move the gamestate from the current state to any GM-preferred state by sheer fiat merely by using their boundless authority over the offscreen setting + employing the magnitude of their role in mediating action resolution to get it done."

That add-on is only assumed when one smuggles in Trad authority distribution, Trad action resolution dynamics, and attendant Sim priorities to "GM plays to win" to the concept of Adversarial GMing.

 

[Vaalingrade]

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".

If the setting is more important than the characters, making your mark isn't a given or even possible. If the DM can't handle a turtle man or sapient golem in their setting, how are they going to handle changing the world's politics or killing an NPC they really, really like?

 

[Oofta]

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.

If all decisions are made using "mechanics", why have a DM? What mechanics do you propose? I roll the dice if I'm uncertain. But if I have decided that a soldier in an invading army doesn't have useful information I don't see a need for a roll.

What "mechanics" do you want? Especially for what could easily be an improvised chase?

 

[TwoSix]

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".

Depends. If you're doing OSR through a sandbox module, maybe I wouldn't use that term. If you're running through your standard WotC adventure or Paizo AP, I almost certainly would.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I disagree.

I think it is. I just think the people who disagree automatically smuggle in Trad authority distribution, Trad action resolution dynamics, and Sim priorities such as "attempting to simulate the world being a living, breathing entity with multiple agents and forces all constantly and simultaneously influencing things and acting out their wills" whether they realize they're doing that smuggling or not.

As a result, they take "GM plays to win" and add-on "and they can do it (win) because they can move the gamestate from the current state to any GM-preferred state by sheer fiat merely by using their boundless authority over the offscreen setting + employing the magnitude of their role in mediating action resolution to get it done."

That add-on is only assumed when one smuggles in Trad authority distribution, Trad action resolution dynamics, and attendant Sim priorities to "GM plays to win" to the concept of Adversarial GMing.

Those things are still strongly implied, if not outright stated, in nearly every version if D&D and its relatives, which are the games we are discussing.

Obviously other games play under different assumptions, and some folks play D&D under different assumptions, and that's fine.

 

[Oofta]

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.

I really wish you would stop using the term setting tourism to describe a style you don't personally care for. Characters existing in a neutral setting is not setting tourism as long as the actions of the PC affect the setting.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Since there a large number of possible fictions that could make sense, the question becomes "why not author a fiction that allows the character's actions to be the linchpin of play?"

And the number one reason to NOT do that is to create situations that prove that character considerations do NOT have primacy over setting agency.

If the kobold doesn't know anything, that's proof positive that the kobold's fictional state was NOT determined by the dramatic needs of the players, but rather by some supposedly neutral "simulative" process.

Where trust is required is that when the DM makes up a framing (like introducing a door), they are mentally using some neutral "simulative" process rather than acting antagonistically towards the players.

Agreed. And I think there are times when it’s painfully obvious that this is not what the DM is doing.

A kobold knowing absolutely nothing, for example.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If the setting is more important than the characters, making your mark isn't a given or even possible. If the DM can't handle a turtle man or sapient golem in their setting, how are they going to handle changing the world's politics or killing an NPC they really, really like?

Of course making your mark (by whatever standard the player is using) isn't a given. It depends on what you do and how the setting reacts. You know, the play loop.

Not sure what species choice has to do with this. Feels like a different agenda.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Those things are still strongly implied, if not outright stated, in nearly every version if D&D and its relatives, which are the games we are discussing.

Doesn't mean they can't improve.