The Adventuring Day and You

[payn]

Greetings,

The adventuring day is an old concept in D&D and TTRPGs in general. It's has been, and still is, a mechanical consideration of a game loop design. Some RPGs have discarded the idea in pursuit of different approaches and dynamics. Some GMs and players are conscious of it, and others are simply unaware of it, even conceptually. The adventuring day is a system consideration that impacts adventure module writing, or perhaps occasionally its not, which can lead to poor experiences depending on the RPG system.

I'm going to use a general definition as this is intended for TTRPG in general. An adventuring day is a series of encounters that may occur during socializing, exploring, or through combat by the player characters. Each PC will have a set of abilities, skills, and resources they have to manage to successfully navigate the adventuring day. Some of those resources are unlimited, and others are not. The adventuring day represents a time frame, typically a 24 hour period of time, though it could be other units of time as well. Once an adventuring day has been completed, the players engage some type of resource reset mechanic. Typically, an 8 hour rest, but could be shorter or longer. Then, the game loop repeats.

I like all sorts of games, and role playing ones are no exception. So, I don't consider an adventuring day concept essential, but I do enjoy them. I think its a sacred cow for D&D as its often described. My expectation is that D&D is going to follow an adventuring day game loop. That means that published adventures and those written by GMs are going to put together a series of encounters that are possible to engage with the resources at the players' disposal. That has been the dynamic for D&D throughout the editions, al beit with some experimentation with the formula.

I have seen the dynamic change a bit from at will abilities (usually a martial-based class) and daily limited resource pools (usually magic users) to abilities that are encounter-based. Also, those that reset on a separate time schedule then the original format. I have seen both the equity of resources across classes, and asymmetrical distribution as well. Id express the changes as daily focused, encounter focused, and hybrid focused. Daily is obviously older editions up to 3E (although 3E was where some experimentation with breaking the dynamic happened). 4E introduced a hybrid approach of resources, distributing them evenly across classes. 5E kept the hybrid approach, but went back to an asymmetrical distribution. PF2, designed by Paizo has experimented even further with a hybrid approach that appears to uphold the adventuring day dynamic, but actually looks a bit more like an encounter-based game thats veiled in its approach (likely due to legacy considerations of its fanbase).

With these experiences, I have come to prefer either a daily focused or an encounter-focused approach. I think the hybrid approach introduces a lot of turbulence to the game loop that doesnt provide the best experience, YMMV. I base this on my game experience, but I also see many threads and discussions about what the adventuring day should look like in X edition or with Y type party. I take that with some regard to the fact most folks seem to either work with the adventuring day hybrid focus, or find ways to work around it. Different folks have different strokes.

So, this is where y'all come in. I am curious what you think about the concept of the adventuring day. Do you think its generally good? Do you have preferences in how its developed? Does it push you away from D&D and derivatives towards other types of RPGs? Do you think about the adventuring day when you are preparing to run for your players? Do you expect your GM to have set up an adventure that follows the day guidelines proficiently? The floor is yours.

-Cheers.

 

[Parmandur]

I like it for D&D, and that 5E in particular really shines when it is pushed that direction. But it is not the only way to run a TTRPG, and a less logistics focused game like the Cosmere RPG is fine without that framework.

 

[SableWyvern]

I prefer a more natural approach. In my experience, designing with some set number of planned encounters in mind is more work as a GM (especially in any system that expects those encounters to be "balanced", which generally goes in hand with the adventuring day concept) and results in a more artificial feeling situations. I would rather just place things down in a fashion that makes sense for the world and let the players deal with it as they see fit.

Having magical abilities that can only be used a set number of times in a given time period I have no issue with, I'm just not interested building a game and adventure structure around that.

Edit to add: I'm OK with resource depletion generally (for example, when exploring a mega dungeon, at some point your resources will probably run low and you'll most likely need to withdraw or otherwise find a place to rest and recover). Again, though, I'm not typically interested in setting a pre-arranged timer on that or deciding in advance how many encounters will occur, how many resources are expected to be expended per encounter and so forth. I want the decision about when it's time to withdraw to be much more dynamic and in flux.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I'm with Sable Wyvern. I don't like the concept of an "adventuring day." I work on "scenarios." And even then resource tracking is one of those things I truly don't like.

When I design an encounter (and design is a strong word for the rough outline I throw together) I expect the PCs to go "all in."

 

[Thierry-Advent]

If I look back, for me, the adventuring day only works well when you travel, and for some reason you need to play it out day by day.

In Dragonbane the day is divided in 4 shifts of 6 hours. My current campaign is centred on a group of scouts who patrol around their settlement. The system works very well under that premise. I prepare encounter vignettes, which are mini-scenes, that I can use if I roll an encounter. They are generic enough to be used during another session to keep prep time to a minimum.

But otherwise, I don't adhere strictly to the Adventuring Day concept.

Solo gaming is different, I love the adventuring day because it gives a tempo to my sessions. I also use the old 10-minutes per room AD&D system to time the progression in dungeons or getting out of it, to heal and restock supplies. (something I hated in the 80s as a group player! )

 

[payn]

I prefer a more natural approach. In my experience, designing with some set number of planned encounters in mind is more work as a GM (especially in any system that expects those encounters to be "balanced", which generally goes in hand with the adventuring day concept) and results in a more artificial feeling situations. I would rather just place things down in a fashion that makes sense for the world and let the players deal with it as they see fit.

Sure, I think thats often the rub in these situations. How does the narrative flow in an organic way without the walls of the mechanics showing. Some folks dont mind these aspects as its a guideline of how the game part is to be played.

Having magical abilities that can only be used a set number of times in a given time period I have no issue with, I'm just not interested building a game and adventure structure around that.

What does that look like then? How do you know how to challenge those resources appropriately? Im not suggesting the adventure day is the answer, I'm just curious what the guideline is without it?

Edit to add: I'm OK with resource depletion generally (for example, when exploring a mega dungeon, at some point your resources will probably run low and you'll most likely need to withdraw or otherwise find a place to rest and recover). Again, though, I'm not typically interested in setting a pre-arranged timer on that or deciding in advance how many encounters will occur, how many resources are expected to be expended per encounter and so forth. I want the decision about when it's time to withdraw to be much more dynamic and in flux.

I think thats where encounter focus really shines. If it makes sense to have 1 in a day , then you have one. If it makes sense to have 8, then you have 8. You dont run into 5MWD as the number of encounters is irrelevant.

I'm with Sable Wyvern. I don't like the concept of an "adventuring day." I work on "scenarios." And even then resource tracking is one of those things I truly don't like.

When I design an encounter (and design is a strong word for the rough outline I throw together) I expect the PCs to go "all in."

Folks like to ask about the players trying to nova and rest as often as possible and how to deal with that. Often, the question gets asked why the players are allowed to do it in the first place. I think a better question to ask is; Do the players even want to play an adventure day-focused game? Encounter-focused might help everyone out in that situation.

 

[Koloth]

One issue I have with the Adventuring Day is the assumption that the 'monsters' will cooperate in letting the PCs rest. Or if the PCs pull back to a safe spot that the monsters won't retake the ground the PC's just vacated. Monsters in this case could be monsters in a dungeon, the Thieves Guild in a city, or the town guard looking for the PCs after a rather destructive bar fight. I think it is fine to let the players sweat sometimes worrying if the rest period will be interrupted and the PCs will have to deal with an encounter with 50% resources left and several main abilities offline.

 

[SableWyvern]

What does that look like then? How do you know how to challenge those resources appropriately? Im not suggesting the adventure day is the answer, I'm just curious what the guideline is without it?

I'm not generally aiming to "challenge those resources appropriately" in the first place. I have a rough idea how dangerous a situation might be just as a matter of eyeballing things but, at the end of the day, what resources it takes to overcome is going to depend entirely on how the players go about it. They might not engage the threat at all, they might come up with a way of circumventing it at little or no cost, they might end up in a slugfest. None of that's my concern, really.

When magic items are being allocated/placed, I'm not typically thinking too much about how the players are going to use them. Obviously, there's a line there somewhere, and I'm not throwing rings of infinite wishes around willy-nilly but, just as I'm not planning and placing monsters and obstacles with thoughts about how many resources they'll require to overcome, I'm not generally allocating resources and thinking about how many, or how regularly, they'll win combat encounters.

In my current game, I'm throwing out some Forgotten Realms-specific magic items taken from the 1e "The Magister" product, mostly via random generation. One of those the party has picked up is a Fire Gyregam. It's close to an "I win" button for one fight -- if used, and used correctly. So far, it's been brought to "ready-to-activate" state once, near the end of a fight that was teetering on the edge of turning to a nasty defeat. It could, at some point, be used in a planned way to overcome a threat the party otherwise would be foolish to take on. But I don't take it into account when I'm designing situations. The PCs will use it when they use it, or they won't. If it trivialises something I thought would be a tough fight, so be it, good on them. If they waste it on a situation where they don't really need it, so be it, sucks to be them.

In another situation, the party had plans to exact revenge on an underworld organisation that had screwed them over previously. As I detailed the organisation as part of my prep, I realised the party was most likely out of its depth. I didn't build the organisation with the thought "they must outclass the PCs", this was just the way it ended up being based on what made sense in the context of the situation. I had some ideas as to how I would handles specific, likely courses of actions, but I didn't analyse specific resource expenditure in anyway or waste time trying to consider any less obvious approaches the players might take. I expected the players would probably butt heads, try to brute force their way forwards, suffer setbacks and, eventually, give up. I also considered the possibility that they actually do something unexpected that works out very successfully for them, and they surprise me by achieving what they were after -- but, as mentioned, I didn't waste time trying to come up with such ideas myself. In the end, the players surprised me by scoping out the situation for a couple days and deciding they were not in a position to get what they wanted, and so they pulled back before bringing any trouble down on their heads. If the PCs had had access to items and powers that made the task easier, they would likely have stayed and potentially succeeded. Either way, I don't need to balance it out and challenge them appropriately -- they have a lot of freedom in deciding for themselves what challenges they will face and it's up the them, not me, to measure those challenges appropriately.

Essentially, I place threats and create situations. It's entirely up to the players to do their due diligence gathering intelligence and then make decisions about risk vs reward when deciding what they want to take on and how they go about it. I have focused a lot on magic items in the previous paragraphs, as that is something I as GM have a lot of control over but the principle extends to innate/learned powers, inasmuch as I'm not interested in any game that expects me to account for and balance those powers against anything else. Certainly, I've got better things to do than memorise every PC's powers and worry about how they might use them.

I think thats where encounter focus really shines. If it makes sense to have 1 in a day , then you have one. If it makes sense to have 8, then you have 8. You dont run into 5MWD as the number of encounters is irrelevant.

I presume you're saying "X use per encounter" powers shine when there are no fixed number of encounters? I guess I can see that, if you're approaching the game from a "build balanced, challenging encounters" perspective to begin with. For me, discussing things in those terms, especially in contrast to things like "daily" powers is looking at the whole topic from a perspective that's very different from own. I'm just not that concerned about which (if any) specific methods are used to ration out power, beyond what makes sense in the context of the world.

I'm currently running Rolemaster, with numerous "X/per day" items, and I don't see that there would be any value in shifting to more "X/per encounter" items instead. YMMV, of course.

 

[payn]

I presume you're saying "X use per encounter" powers shine when there are no fixed number of encounters? I guess I can see that, if you're approaching the game from a "build balanced, challenging encounters" perspective to begin with. For me, discussing things in those terms, especially in contrast to things like "daily" powers is looking at the whole topic from a perspective that's very different from own. I'm just not that concerned about which (if any) specific methods are used to ration out power, beyond what makes sense in the context of the world.

I'm currently running Rolemaster, with numerous "X/per day" items, and I don't see that there would be any value in shifting to more "X/per encounter" items instead. YMMV, of course.

By encounters focused I mean dailies would be gone. Every encounter is a challenge and the PCs have their full arsenal to deal with it. I dont think its for everyone, but I think a lot of people would like it.

 

[aramis erak]

Greetings,

The adventuring day is an old concept in D&D and TTRPGs in general.

Disagree with the "TTRPGs in general" ... it's mostly in the D&D emulations. D&D, Pathfinder, Palladium all draw from the D&D well. All use daily cycles for magic...
but I prefer games that don't.
T&T Str Recovery from casting is simply a 1 point per 10 minutes... for a 10th level caster, many of those spells will take multiple days rest... as recovery caps at 144 per day.
TFT, also 1 per 10 minutes... but the most powerful spells costs recover in a ffew hours.

So, this is where y'all come in. I am curious what you think about the concept of the adventuring day. Do you think its generally good? Do you have preferences in how its developed? Does it push you away from D&D and derivatives towards other types of RPGs? Do you think about the adventuring day when you are preparing to run for your players? Do you expect your GM to have set up an adventure that follows the day guidelines proficiently? The floor is yours.

-Cheers.

I prefer games where the only daily cycle is the need for sleep and food.

I don't mind once-per-scene mechanics, but don't actually like them.
I dislike once-per-session and once-per-day cycles in mechanics.