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.

 

[hawkeyefan]

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.

Yes, potentially. But when first presented it was not described as such. It was just “what if the DM decides the Maltese Falcon that the players decide to steal is fake”.

Again… hypotheticals are difficult because they’re missing a lot of details and context.

 

[TwoSix]

But sometimes the things just aren't apparent like that. Sometimes the thing which guarantees the failure just isn't known to the players.

And for some playstyles, that's OK. In others, it isn't.

 

[tetrasodium]

What if it’s a one shot?

What if it is? A one shot is going to have a very different set of priorities that normally involve hitting the ground running and playing "THIS module" rather than some kind of sandbox where players have a lot of room to randomly strike out on some kinda unplanned self directed quest. What the heck kind of one shot can players find out about and decide to go steal a treasure for reasons other than one intended to steal it. Sure you can run some homebrew one shot, but they still tend to be module-like in prep.

If the one shot stealing it was fun then there is a seed for some other possible follow-up one shot to the module being run and I can't see how it being fake or not is going to matter when the PCs are done after this one shot. Was the adventure fun?

If the one shot was to do something else and the players decided to steal it then any further what if depends on how far they deviated. "Congratulations Bob, you robbed Lord so-and-so while he was hiring the party... After you guys take the job and leave you realize that he probably wasn't too concerned about you stealing the obvious fake from his desk now that you see that 'made in breland' sticker beside the gift shop tag on the bottom" is simply dismissing what should have been a total derailment of what sounds a lot like the opening to a one shot where players get hired to do something other than rob the quest giver.is the rest of the one shot fun?

What if it's a one shot, it's not fake, and the player tries to bring that PC with a Maltese falcon statue to some other game expecting to sell it only for the gm to say it's fake or nobody wants to buy something with so many counterfeits... Does the fun you had during that one shot retroactively go away?what kind of "one shot" is sandboxy enough to support players setting up a goal like stealing the Maltese falcon when that wasn't the adventure... Was it fun?

 

[ezo]

But do you get the point?

Many things may “make sense” in the setting. So that isn’t a meaningful rationale on its own for a DM making a decision in play. There’s more to it.

So what more is there?

Do you want to engage with that or send more winky emojis?

Ooh, ooh, ooh!!! Winky Emojis please! (j/k)

I've already addressed this in my last post. There are many valid reasons a DM might run a scene they way they do.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You know I've run it.

Since its release in 2017, I would be surprised if any individual on the planet has run it more than I have. So I'm slightly more confident in my credibility on that system than I am in yours.

If you think setting Position and Effect is some kind of killshot of GM fiat, then you really don't understand that game...like at all. You clearly don't understand the GM constraints (both systemic procedures and the table-facing principles that must be indexed every time you set them) on setting Position and Effect.

You cannot possibly give me an example of doing what you're describing that isn't a violation of (a) the actual procedures of setting Position and Effect, (b) the GMing principles that undergird it, and (c) the fiction that serves as binding input on play. But if you'd like to take a crack at a hypothetical, I'd gladly entertain it.

No I won't, that's way too much work.

But even in Blades, the GM has a lot of leeway for deciding things, both about the fiction and the mechanics. Not nearly as much as in D&D, but still a lot. GM's role in neither game is to screw the players over as hard as they possibly can. And I don't believe you do that. So you're not actually GMing adversarially.

 

[Oofta]

I wish you would not make assumptions about my preferences.

I enjoy setting tourism just fine, actually. I just played in such a game in my weekly Monday night game with my longstanding friends. It was a version of Curse of Strahd.

Next, we’re likely going to resume playing Delta Green. This is also very much about exploring the setting that the GM has prepared.

There’s nothing at all wrong with that type of game.

The definition that I get for setting tourism is that the setting cannot be changed, it's static no matter what the PCs do. At least that's what it means to some people ... then again I don't know of a dictionary that gives us definitions for all this stuff.

 

[hawkeyefan]

And that means ... what? I keep seeing a lot of vague words that sound good but don't really say anything whether that's your intent or not. We have a world that's there for the characters and systematic way to make decisions without any real explanation.

Maybe an analogy will work.

What’s a playground for? I mean, its primary function. We could discuss that it may be aesthetically pleasing or may repurpose items that would be disposed so it’s a good way to recycle and on and on.

But its main purpose is for play.

Same thing for an RPG setting.

I also disagree. I have a persistent campaign world. It was not designed for any one group of players or PCs. I sometimes have multiple groups inhabiting different parts of that world. It doesn't revolve around anything, it exists and there are hopefully fun challenges and adventures to be had. It's affected by what the PCs do but it is not designed for anyone but what I think an interesting fantasy world would look like.

That doesn’t change the fact that what it is for is to be an RPG setting. It may offer other things… you may enjoy working on it in spare time, drawing maps, creating NOCs and nations and all that… it may even be a source for income if you ever decided to publish it. Maybe it’s a way to bond with froends or family in ways other than just RPG play; maybe you tell your kids stories about the world or what have you. It could even be therapeutic in some way… a creative exercise can be a good outlet and can help people avoid other less desirable ones.

I say this to ensure you that I do not want to belittle your or anyone else’s setting. All of these things and more can be true.

But when we talk of RPGs, the primary purpose of the setting is to facilitate play. It’s the imaginary place where our imaginary characters dwell.

For me, I prefer when setting serves the characters. That thought has been put into how setting elements will shape play, what it offers characters and so forth. When I play, I often want to explore the characters more than the world… and that’s generally what I want a setting to support.

I’m less interested (though there are notable exceptions) of play focusing on learning about a fictional place.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

The definition that I get for setting tourism is that the setting cannot be changed, it's static no matter what the PCs do. At least that's what it means to some people ... then again I don't know of a dictionary that gives us definitions for all this stuff.

If your definition is assumed. Are all modules in the forgotten realms, by definition, setting tourism? And if so, does the term lose it's meaning if it applies to some of the most widely used settings in the hobby?

 

[Oofta]

I didn’t say all decisions needed to be made via mechanics. I said that all decisions should not be made by DM decides. That some amoubt… ANY amount… of is required.

The DM still has tons of input on play even if we take one or two things and leave them up to the rules. You know… the same as how most of the game works.

Then where do you draw the line and what type of mechanic should there be? Because I pretty much invent every PC, every building, every door. I only roll a die if I'm uncertain of the outcome. I simply don't know what kind of mechanics you want or think should be used.

 

[hawkeyefan]

You know I've run it.

Since its release in 2017, I would be surprised if any individual on the planet has run it more than I have. So I'm slightly more confident in my credibility on that system than I am in yours.

If you think setting Position and Effect is some kind of killshot of GM fiat, then you really don't understand that game...like at all. You clearly don't understand the GM constraints (both systemic procedures and the table-facing principles that must be indexed every time you set them) on setting Position and Effect.

You cannot possibly give me an example of doing what you're describing that isn't a violation of (a) the actual procedures of setting Position and Effect, (b) the GMing principles that undergird it, and (c) the fiction that serves as binding input on play. But if you'd like to take a crack at a hypothetical, I'd gladly entertain it.

This conflict about the potentially adversarial nature of GMing tends to come up when folks cannot set aside the idea that a GM won’t just break the rules or undermine the principles and procedures of play. Because that’s so often associated with GMing… in this thread it’s been described as an essential aspect of DMing, meaning one cannot DM without it (despite plenty of evidence otherwise)… they can’t imagine how a GM could approach play from a competitive angle and not just ROFLstomp the players because they can break the rules!

Principled GMing combined with high player agency is how Blades in the Dark pulls it off.