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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jacob Lewis" data-source="post: 9774386" data-attributes="member: 6667921">You’re right that earlier editions didn’t depend on the “adventuring day” model in the same way—attrition existed naturally through save-or-die effects, spell scarcity, permanent debilitation, and other forms of risk that punished carelessness long before the question of rest even came up. A fresh party could face a deadly single encounter because the system itself carried more variance and consequence.What changed wasn’t just encounter math—it was the underlying safety net. As D&D stripped away the harsher mechanics that enforced attrition organically, it tried to replace them with pacing expectations: multiple encounters per rest, controlled recovery, and XP math that assumes a resource curve across the day. The problem is that the system doesn’t actually enforce those expectations. It relies on table culture and DM restraint to make them matter.So when I say the “adventuring day” is a systemic issue, I don’t mean that 1e or 2e literally used the same model. I mean that modern D&D built its encounter balance around that model, then refused to give DMs the structural support needed to maintain it. Older editions didn’t need the concept because their danger curve did the work for them.That’s more a comment on how the rules present the world than how any given DM runs it. The problem isn’t that DMs can’t introduce consequences or pacing—it’s that the system doesn’t teach them to. When the books present a world where time and consequence are mostly abstract, most tables treat them that way. The absence of systemic guidance becomes the guidance. That’s not a DM issue; it’s a design issue. D&D offloads structural responsibility onto the DM, then calls it flexibility.There’s nothing inherently wrong with that approach, and for tables that see no issue, it isn’t one. But a system built to appease everyone by keeping things open and flexible doesn’t become problem-free simply because the majority doesn’t notice the gaps. It just means those gaps are normalized. The problems remain for those who do notice—and for them, no amount of majority comfort makes the issue disappear.</blockquote>

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