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Message: <blockquote data-quote="cooperjer" data-source="post: 6970905" data-attributes="member: 6862150">I run an eight hour game minus a lunch break.  I don't plan out how many encounters occur in the game, but when I setup the potential encounters I total the XP to find out if it's the recommended amount for a days worth with the given character levels.  My players tend not to take a long rest when they could potentially be assaulted by enemies, i.e. they do not take long rests in dungeons or at castles. This allows me to predict that a days worth of XP should occur at one location or if more than a days worth of XP occurs then the characters should have a rest area.  A couple examples follow:The Red Hand of Doom adventure starts with an encounter at a keep.  It then has an encounter planned at the town the adventures return to from the keep.  I design the encounters at the keep plus the encounter at the town to meet the daily XP total recommended by the DMG.  I might add a "random" encounter between the two locations to add XP if I want to enhance the story some or if I feel luck left the characters with more resources than expected for the next encounter in the town.Princes of the Apocalypse has several levels of dungeon the characters can explore.  I've only detailed the encounters for the first two levels, and I have only just started the adventure.  However, I did plan out a full days worth of XP at the top level keep/tower.  The second level of the dungeon happens to have about 1.5 days worth of XP, but there is a place for the characters to take a long rest and keep out of the way of the enemy.I guess this doesn't address the number of encounters per day that a DM should have, but I feel the recommended XP per day in the DMG is a better metric of determining how difficult an adventure could be.</blockquote>

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