My main gaming group for which I DM meets once a week on Sundays for about a 5-hour time frame. The amount of actually gaming done during that time probably averages close to 4 hours, since we'll spend some time catching up as well as having a couple breaks to refresh.
Most of the other groups for which I DM tend to run closer to 2-3 hours per session. However, a lot of these groups also involve families with younger kids or groups of teenagers, who don't necessarily have the attention spans to sit through a 5-hour session.
really intrigued how sessions that are 1.5 to 2 hours long run, I find we are just getting into it about an hour in and as a DM my "episodes" take about 4 hours to run.
really intrigued how sessions that are 1.5 to 2 hours long run, I find we are just getting into it about an hour in and as a DM my "episodes" take about 4 hours to run.
My two hour sessions are two hours of actual play online. I get online 15-30 minutes early and open chat / social catch up is allowed, but the play start is firm. Same for the stop. When we stop, some folks have to jump off right away because of commitments but I keep the room open if I or other folks want to social/debrief. Anyone who misses anything important from that gets updated over text or email.
Seems the norm is no more than three hours. Same for me. I'm wondering how anybody keeps players interested for 4+ hour sessions!
Online norm seems to 2-3 (I think there's real screen time psychology of attention span to that). In person fourish. Most "one shots" across the hobby are designed to be done in 4-5 hours. If you're breaking it up over multiple sessions that morphs into 6-8 hours of time together real easy. When I conventioned, and this may have changed but in person events were I want to say at least three hours and more like four, excluding the late night sessions, some official events some informal pick up games, but all of which were often designed to be all nighters.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
really intrigued how sessions that are 1.5 to 2 hours long run, I find we are just getting into it about an hour in and as a DM my "episodes" take about 4 hours to run.
My two hour sessions are two hours of actual play online. I get online 15-30 minutes early and open chat / social catch up is allowed, but the play start is firm. Same for the stop. When we stop, some folks have to jump off right away because of commitments but I keep the room open if I or other folks want to social/debrief. Anyone who misses anything important from that gets updated over text or email.
Seems the norm is no more than three hours. Same for me. I'm wondering how anybody keeps players interested for 4+ hour sessions!
Online norm seems to 2-3 (I think there's real screen time psychology of attention span to that). In person fourish. Most "one shots" across the hobby are designed to be done in 4-5 hours. If you're breaking it up over multiple sessions that morphs into 6-8 hours of time together real easy. When I conventioned, and this may have changed but in person events were I want to say at least three hours and more like four, excluding the late night sessions, some official events some informal pick up games, but all of which were often designed to be all nighters.
When our game session starts there are no distractions, I just mean in 2 hours that barely allows time for in depth NPC interaction (a shopping trip can take an hour with my party). I do have a party of 7-8 I am currently running but from experience even with a party of 4 in 2 hours we would have barely started, we would be looking at 3-4 sessions before we got out of the town and started adventuring, but I run open world campaigns and rarely do anything resembling a dungeon crawl. I suppose if the players knew that they where moving room to room then we might get through a bit more in 2 hours (although My descriptors of combat, the environment and room etc would probably need to be a bit truncated)
When our game session starts there are no distractions, I just mean in 2 hours that barely allows time for in depth NPC interaction (a shopping trip can take an hour with my party). I do have a party of 7-8 I am currently running but from experience even with a party of 4 in 2 hours we would have barely started, we would be looking at 3-4 sessions before we got out of the town and started adventuring, but I run open world campaigns and rarely do anything resembling a dungeon crawl. I suppose if the players knew that they where moving room to room then we might get through a bit more in 2 hours (although My descriptors of combat, the environment and room etc would probably need to be a bit truncated)
I don't know how everyone else does it, but I'm told I have a good ear/feel for dramatic/narrative pacing and timing (got a background in breaking down how stories work and juggling multi participant conversations in classroom and bureaucratic environments) so the sessions are "tight" but they work. I've even done "split the party" sessions, the trick I used is the understanding that the DM had a firm control of the camera so I'd let one element of the group do their thing and I'd yell "cut, now back to" the other element of the group. It was actually a very social RP oriented session when I first used it and the players loved it I think because everyone felt like they got spot lights, or everyone who wanted to. When we had to do that in a more tactical/combat situation (street chase that became a cluster) they were game, so to speak. I do spend a lot more time doing "what worked what didn't work" in my own session reviews, because I think we're on the same page that it's a tight working space in a two hour session so the DMs and players' games have to be fine tuned.
Sure sometimes it feels as the DM that the party is taking "forever" (I think Frozen Sick took like 12 hours total), but I like watching the party play because they seem to be having a good time.
really intrigued how sessions that are 1.5 to 2 hours long run, I find we are just getting into it about an hour in and as a DM my "episodes" take about 4 hours to run.
I mostly run duet campaigns- in 2 hours we often complete 1-2 sections of DoIP.
Couple hours usually. But I had one DM who used to run sessions for like 8-10 hours at a time. Took a lot of caffeine to get through those lol. One time we were in a maze full of different kinds of beholders and after the 11th beholder creature me and a couple other people literally got up and walked out. After that he cut back to more manageable sessions (3-4 hrs).
really intrigued how sessions that are 1.5 to 2 hours long run, I find we are just getting into it about an hour in and as a DM my "episodes" take about 4 hours to run.
I mostly run duet campaigns- in 2 hours we often complete 1-2 sections of DoIP.
See I ran DoIP and I got that down to a section lasting 4-8hrs of play, but I add lots of roleplaying interaction, random encounters when traveling and I also tweak the encounters to make them tougher.
With a mixture of challenging combat, meaningful roll playing, and problems for the players to solve.
But at the end of the day, some people are just "more into it" than others.
By making extremely random encounters and having a party that loves D&D as much as I do!
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My main gaming group for which I DM meets once a week on Sundays for about a 5-hour time frame. The amount of actually gaming done during that time probably averages close to 4 hours, since we'll spend some time catching up as well as having a couple breaks to refresh.
Most of the other groups for which I DM tend to run closer to 2-3 hours per session. However, a lot of these groups also involve families with younger kids or groups of teenagers, who don't necessarily have the attention spans to sit through a 5-hour session.
2 hours. I would generally like to go up to 3 or 4 but I have a player who dislikes playing for over 2.
really intrigued how sessions that are 1.5 to 2 hours long run, I find we are just getting into it about an hour in and as a DM my "episodes" take about 4 hours to run.
It's not a matter of interest, it's mostly about being parents, or having work, or other life stuff going on.
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In person 4hrs. On discord games go from 2-10hrs. I run some long one shots that should be broken up into sessions but nah.
My two hour sessions are two hours of actual play online. I get online 15-30 minutes early and open chat / social catch up is allowed, but the play start is firm. Same for the stop. When we stop, some folks have to jump off right away because of commitments but I keep the room open if I or other folks want to social/debrief. Anyone who misses anything important from that gets updated over text or email.
Online norm seems to 2-3 (I think there's real screen time psychology of attention span to that). In person fourish. Most "one shots" across the hobby are designed to be done in 4-5 hours. If you're breaking it up over multiple sessions that morphs into 6-8 hours of time together real easy. When I conventioned, and this may have changed but in person events were I want to say at least three hours and more like four, excluding the late night sessions, some official events some informal pick up games, but all of which were often designed to be all nighters.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
My current group plays 5-6 hours a session normally.
call me Anna or Kerns, (she/her), usually a DM, lgbtq+ friendly
My group plays 3-4 hours normally.
When our game session starts there are no distractions, I just mean in 2 hours that barely allows time for in depth NPC interaction (a shopping trip can take an hour with my party). I do have a party of 7-8 I am currently running but from experience even with a party of 4 in 2 hours we would have barely started, we would be looking at 3-4 sessions before we got out of the town and started adventuring, but I run open world campaigns and rarely do anything resembling a dungeon crawl. I suppose if the players knew that they where moving room to room then we might get through a bit more in 2 hours (although My descriptors of combat, the environment and room etc would probably need to be a bit truncated)
I don't know how everyone else does it, but I'm told I have a good ear/feel for dramatic/narrative pacing and timing (got a background in breaking down how stories work and juggling multi participant conversations in classroom and bureaucratic environments) so the sessions are "tight" but they work. I've even done "split the party" sessions, the trick I used is the understanding that the DM had a firm control of the camera so I'd let one element of the group do their thing and I'd yell "cut, now back to" the other element of the group. It was actually a very social RP oriented session when I first used it and the players loved it I think because everyone felt like they got spot lights, or everyone who wanted to. When we had to do that in a more tactical/combat situation (street chase that became a cluster) they were game, so to speak. I do spend a lot more time doing "what worked what didn't work" in my own session reviews, because I think we're on the same page that it's a tight working space in a two hour session so the DMs and players' games have to be fine tuned.
Sure sometimes it feels as the DM that the party is taking "forever" (I think Frozen Sick took like 12 hours total), but I like watching the party play because they seem to be having a good time.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
My weekly online game goes two hours.
3-4 hours, give or take. In that time we cover a full adventuring day (3 Deadly encounters usually). And I usually have 3-4 players.
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I mostly run duet campaigns- in 2 hours we often complete 1-2 sections of DoIP.
Only spilt the party if you see something shiny.
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Couple hours usually. But I had one DM who used to run sessions for like 8-10 hours at a time. Took a lot of caffeine to get through those lol. One time we were in a maze full of different kinds of beholders and after the 11th beholder creature me and a couple other people literally got up and walked out. After that he cut back to more manageable sessions (3-4 hrs).
My regular group (5 players) tends to be around 3-4 hours and for the duet that I play in, sessions tend to run about 2 hours.
Exactly 2 hours.
See I ran DoIP and I got that down to a section lasting 4-8hrs of play, but I add lots of roleplaying interaction, random encounters when traveling and I also tweak the encounters to make them tougher.
I DM in person, and sessions are typically 3.5 - 4 hours long.