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]

Then why do the only people who happily refer to it as setting tourism seem to also be folks who prefer other styles of play? Coincidence?

I don’t generally use the phrase myself but I don’t think it’s problematic. I play and run games that would fall into that category.

Why do people who want to take offense at the term ignore that I play and enjoy such games? Coincidence?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Why not just engage with the point if you understood it? The problem isn’tpeople using words in idiosyncratic ways… not if they take the time to explicitly explain their usage.

I genuinely first didn't understand it, and I am not sure I still do. These word games are super frustrating, I like discussing things, even if we might disagree, but if I first need to use several posts to even decipher what is meant then it just is terrible.

Let’s imagine he said “competitive” instead of “adversarial”if you like. Can you then engage with the clear point?

Perhaps. And if @Manbearcat actually meant that, they're free to clarify.

 

[Oofta]

I’m not saying your dense. I’m not sure what else I can say to try and convey what I’m talking about. I’ll try one more thing.

Instead of making a setting first and then characters that fit into it, try making the characters first, and only then start making the setting.

That’s not exactly what I mean, but I’m hoping it will help bridge this gap.

Unless the players are significantly adding to world lore I don't see the difference. I have a lot of regions with a fairly wide array of themes.

Collaborative world building is fine if that's what you want, if that's what you mean, it's just not my preference.

 

[Maxperson]

The first and last sentences here say the same thing! The players are a committee who can veto the GM any time they like, precisely as you describe.

That's not a veto. The president has to use his veto power to veto something. Quitting the presidency won't do it. Players leaving are...............leaving. That's all. They haven't shut down anything. They haven't vetoed anything.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Why wouldn't the DM let the character's actions change the setting?

Because their setting is more important than the characters.

because their setting and their story is a precious ming vase that shouldn't have to suffer the grimey fingerprints of those awful players.

 

[Maxperson]

Fair enough. I suppose at that point the question turns to whether or not the GM adjudicated the interrogation and its results in a principled fashion. I don't see any clear evidence one way or the other in your posted example, however, just your very clear feelings about the result.

I maintain that the fact that kobolds had a language and PCs spoke it is strong evidence that the DM didn't adjudicate it in a principled fashion. Creatures that can speak and have developed the language of their own are going to be smart enough to communicate in it and be interrogated.

While I can't know what happened since I wasn't there, I do believe @pemerton on this one. He and I have disagreed on a lot of things, but he has never struck me as someone who would make up something like this.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't. The game is a game. I want the game portion to be as compelling as the fictional portion.


I'm jaded. Twenty years ago, I might have been intrigued. Now, that comes across as a Kickstarter blurb for a 400 page book full of proper names describing a Harn/Kalamar clone.

Well, that certainly doesn't come across as insulting.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Because their setting is more important than the characters.

because their setting and their story is a precious ming vase that shouldn't have to suffer the grimey fingerprints of those awful players.

Not sure who you're describing. Are they perhaps made of straw?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don’t generally use the phrase myself but I don’t think it’s problematic. I play and run games that would fall into that category.

Why do people who want to take offense at the term ignore that I play and enjoy such games? Coincidence?

I'm not ignoring it. Just noticing a correlation and wondering if it equals causation.

On a related note, being made aware a term is considered offensive to some of your fellow posters and continuing to use it because you've explained you don't mean it that way doesn't actually solve anything IMO.

 

[TwoSix]

Well, that certainly doesn't come across as insulting.

It was more meant as dismissive than insulting.