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]

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.

I know it's an old, old movie but I thought the Maltese Falcon was well known enough to use as an example. In the case of the Maltese Falcon it was sought after by different individuals who thought it was incredibly valuable. It wasn't, it was always a fake. If I were using it as inspiration for a game, it's not that I decided that it was fake after the group managed to acquire it, it's that it was always fake.

Phony artifacts, forged pieces of art, the all powerful wizard just being someone behind the curtain, McGuffins that are actually worthless are all standard storytelling tropes.

 

[TwoSix]

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?

I, personally, would apply "setting tourism" to most non-sandbox modules. If the expectation of play is that we're going to start in Chapter 1 and "X sessions later" get to the last boss fight in Chapter 6, that's setting tourism.

"Setting tourism" isn't some degenerate state; I imagine it's probably the most common playstyle across the entire spectrum of TTRPG tables.

 

[Oofta]

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.



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.

All well and good until we get to this ...

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.

I've made what I think is a passingly realistic fantasy world. I've thought about the different actors (NPCs, organizations, monsters mighty and meek) and how they interact with each other. When we have a session 0 I discuss with the group various regions and overall goals we could start with and we go from there. So if they want to start in the cold north I'll explain what that region is like and what kind of scenarios are most likely there. That chain of islands? Full of cutthroat pirates, but also plenty of opportunity for privateers that defend against the pirates.

Yes, I've prepared the menu of options but the players pick from that menu. I'm not making up a world for a specific campaign. So I'm sorry if I'm dense but I still don't know what "a setting serves the characters" means in comparison to any other way of designing a world.

 

[TwoSix]

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.

I think there's a distinction here between being adversarial towards the characters and adversarial towards the players.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I see the difference. I was just not sure by your sweeping claims about pre-authored failure states that you did. Bu if we are on the same page, then cool!

But basically this was about how you can "commit no mistakes and still lose" without it being adversarial GMing.

In what other game would this be acceptable? If you make no mistakes in Chess, you’re not going to lose. If you make no mistakes in football, you’re not going to lose. Maybe a draw would be the worst outcome?

I think this idea fails to register a lot because people get so caught up in portraying a world that they forget they’re also playing a game.

I mean… if I’m pitching a perfect game, and I get to the last batter and the count’s full, and I throw a fastball that hits the inside corner of the plate and the umpire calls it a ball… I’m gonna be annoyed, to put it mildly.

I don’t want a game that’s unfair.

Bad stuff happens because I fail? Or one of my fellow players messes up? Or because of some procedure? Okay, that happens!

But if bad stuff happens just because the DM wants it to? That’s crap.

 

[Oofta]

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?

If setting tourism applies to all campaigns, why bother with the phrase?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I think there's a distinction here between being adversarial towards the characters and adversarial towards the players.

Yes! And "adversarial GMing" is commonly understood to mean the latter!

 

[TwoSix]

Yes, I've prepared the menu of options but the players pick from that menu. I'm not making up a world for a specific campaign. So I'm sorry if I'm dense but I still don't know what "a setting serves the characters" means in comparison to any other way of designing a world.

Generally, it would mean making up the world for the specific campaign. Other than deciding we're using "X system", the players bring the dishes and the setting is a potluck buffet.

 

[TwoSix]

Yes! And "adversarial GMing" is commonly understood to mean the latter!

But, from context, it's glaringly obvious that is not how @Manbearcat used the term. I only took the time to call it out because it seemed people were missing it.

 

[Oofta]

Generally, it would mean making up the world for the specific campaign. Other than deciding we're using "X system", the players bring the dishes and the setting is a potluck buffet.

Unless the players are also cooking the meals I don't really see a functional difference.