The average DM age is skewing higher than I expected; the age of campaigns is skewing lower than I'd expected. Time in play is about what I expected.
Of course, there are impressive exceptions! 33 year campaign?! Playing for 8 hour sessions?!
Number of Campaigns is insane. I suspect that's connected to a the young age of a lot of them, and their number, is being influenced by COVID-19 lockdowns; it might be interesting to revisit this thread a year or so after the vaccine becomes widely available.
I also think I see a trend where younger DMs have time for more Campaigns. I'm jealous ;)
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How old you might be ( within a decade or two )? 5 Decades (Usually I say I was born before we walked on the moon, but that is still a wide gap)
How many Campaigns are you involved in? 4 Currently
How many of those are you involved in as a GM vs. as a Player? 1 as DM, 3 as Player
How often does that group get together to play? Varies. 1 is every Wednesday. 2 alternate on Fridays with some of the same people and some different. 1 I run at home for a very small group of family.
Do you play online ( Discord, Google Hangouts, Roll20, Fantasy Ground, etc ), or in person? Discord and Roll20 primarily with Roll20 being used for maps and tactics in the home game as well.
How long do your sessions typically run? 3-4 hours
How stable are those groups? Are they run a Campaign of 6-12 months and then the group shuffles and finds new Players? Have you been running with the same Players for 30 years? Relatively stable. The Wednesday game has been running for about 4 years (started with some grad students who then moved away and we cut our teeth with online play before it became mandatory), the Friday sessions are almost a year old and the Home sessions are on and off for over a year. I wish I was still involved with our more than a decade game, but when the Storyteller passed away a few years ago, we drifted apart into other sessions.
How many of those are you involved in as a GM vs. as a Player?: 2 Player, 1 GM
How often does that group get together to play? The 2 campaigns I'm a player in alternate weekends. The campaign I GM meets every 2 or 3 weeks
Do you play online ( Discord, Google Hangouts, Roll20, Fantasy Ground, etc ), or in person?: In Person, some players Zoom.
How long do your sessions typically run? 5 - 6 Hours
How stable are those groups? I play with my very close friends. The group has been stable since we started (5 years ago). We've added two new players since the beginning who were already close friends with everyone. We were all friends before starting to play DND together.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
How old you might be ( within a decade or two )? 19 yo
How many Campaigns are you involved in? 2 right now, and another one thats on indefinite hiatus. Also DMing a 2 shot adventure thats hopefully gonna be finished up tomorrow.
How many of those are you involved in as a GM vs. as a Player? 1 as a DM, 1 as a player (and the one thats on hiatus I also DM for)
How often does that group get together to play? The one I DM for plays about 1-2x a week, the one that I play in is pretty on and off, but when we were consistently playing it was 1x a week
Do you play online ( Discord, Google Hangouts, Roll20, Fantasy Ground, etc ), or in person? Typically in person, but due to summer break and quarantine its all been online for the past couple months on roll20
How long do your sessions typically run? Ehh, depends on when we start, but usually 3-5 hours
How stable are those groups? Are they run a Campaign of 6-12 months and then the group shuffles and finds new Players? Have you been running with the same Players for 30 years? I play with two different groups of people. One of which is a group of my college friends where people join in and out, and leave, etc etc. Very wishy-washy, but I have a good couple that consistently play. The other one is a group of friends from home, and we usually all play together whenever we do a new campaign/adventure.
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just a person who likes games and has zero free time
How many of those are you involved in as a GM vs. as a Player?
I'm the GM for two games and a player for one.
How often does that group get together to play?
One of the game is every other week, the other two are weekly (with the occasional gap week). Usually play on a Tuesday, Friday and Saturday.
Do you play online ( Discord, Google Hangouts, Roll20, Fantasy Ground, etc ), or in person?
Used to have one face-to-face, however all are currently online through Roll20 & Discord.
How long do your sessions typically run?
Two of the games run for around three hours per session, the game that used to be face-to-face has around four hour sessions. Sometimes when we were doing the face-to-face games, we'd have a long six hour game but it would have a good hour break where we'd all enjoy a group dinner half way through the game.
How stable are those groups? Are they run a Campaign of 6-12 months and then the group shuffles and finds new Players? Have you been running with the same Players for 30 years?
They're all mostly stable groups, a few players have dipped out of one of them or have gone on a long-term break but the majority have stuck together.
One has been going for around three years with us rotating the GM for new campaigns, another is just coming onto the second year together and the third has been together for around fourteen years.
With the group that has the rotation not he GM, the campaigns run for approximately eight to twelve months on average and then the next GM takes over and starts a campaign in the same world and continues the timeline so we're always playing in a world that has been changed by the adventure before it.
The group that is nearing their second year together have been playing in the same campaign for that length of time.
Then my long running group face-to-face group have played through a couple of very long campaigns; the current one they're playing through has been going for about seven years so far.
Also, unasked question, I'm French, where are you guys from ?
I live in a small village within the south west countryside of England.
I'm a college kid, I run one game for three of my friends, with a 3-4 hour session once a week in person. We've played for a year, but cut the group down from 5 people (it was a mess) a few months ago. I also run games for my old high school friends over the summer (we've played for a few years), but that's it. We used to play weekly but it's become super spotty this year.
How old you might be ( within a decade or two )? -- I am 36 and from The Netherlands. Players at my current table are between 20-26.
How many Campaigns are you involved in? -- Currently only 1. I tried more, but there are other hobbies that I do as well. So cut off all other games to focus on this 1.
How many of those are you involved in as a GM vs. as a Player? -- I ran 2 campaigns and played in 2 others last year to beginning this year.
How often does that group get together to play? -- My own campaign is where all the attention goes. Every other saturday we get together at 15:00. we chat, ask questions, set things up. Begin playing at 16:00 till 18:00. Then we use 1 hour to cook a meal and eat together. Resuming from 19:00 till 22:00. Making it 5 hours played every other week. There is very few to none out of character stuff happening as well. So quality 5 hours of play.
Do you play online ( Discord, Google Hangouts, Roll20, Fantasy Ground, etc ), or in person? -- I tried DM'ing and playing online. It just isn't for me. I need to see people's body language etc. So I only play in person at the table.
How long do your sessions typically run? -- 5 hours in total.
How stable are those groups? Are they run a Campaign of 6-12 months and then the group shuffles and finds new Players? Have you been running with the same Players for 30 years? -- As mentioned earlier. I experimented with online play and other campaigns. Just didn't work. My own campaign is run for friends who asked. It is pretty stable. 1 or 2 players left due to private situations. Other friends joined to take their place. Overall there have always been 4 - 7 players. This campaign is 2 years or so running. 40 sessions played. lvl 6 PC's.
When growing up I played AD&D up to 3.5 with the same people for around a decade. I was mostly a player in that with occasional DM'ing for them as well. Playing occasional short adventures through IRC back then with strangers I met in various groups.
That's another interesting facet that we hadn't been discussing: what's the demographic breakdown of your Players?
Until this last group I'd always played with people roughly my own age. This last group was more demographically diverse - from early 20s up to 60-something.
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the player demographic is varied. all within the 20-25 age bracket 1 woman, disabled in wheelchair 1 woman with social anxieties with asian heritage 1 black dude with adhd 1 indonesian/australian dude that is more a sporty type 1 a typical white dude that works with animals
and i'm your typical white dude. going towards middle aged antics. talking about all the things i achieved in the past. in the field of work and european athlete performances. while right now i'm not really achieving much or doing anything other than just play games, chill, eat way too many snacks. sitting out my days till retirement.
In short quite diverse i'd say. and funny part is... we all hate the forced fake inclusivity, identity movements occurring everywhere. Those just cause more segregation instead of unity.
How many of those are you involved in as a GM vs. as a Player GM
How often does that group get together to play Every Sunday with a bonus game on Thursday depending on schedules
Do you play online ( Discord, Google Hangouts, Roll20, Fantasy Ground, etc ), or in-person Zoom with Roll20 battle mat.
How long do your sessions typically run 3 to 2.5 hours
How stable are those groups? Are they run a Campaign of 6-12 months and then the group shuffles and finds new Players? Have you been running with the same Players for 30 years? After 20 years off from playing due to life in general my old group reformed to play some mid-life D&D during the pandemic online. It's been great. Until last night when I almost TPK them all.
I'll put both Pre and Post Covid answers since it's changed considerably.
How old you might be ( within a decade or two )? late 40's
How many Campaigns are you involved in? Pre- 3, Post-4
How many of those are you involved in as a GM vs. as a Player? Pre- 1 as DM 3 as player, Post- 2 as DM 2 as player
How often does that group get together to play? Pre- bi-weekly for one and monthly for the other two, Post- bi weekly for all 4 on alternating weeks/days
Do you play online ( Discord, Google Hangouts, Roll20, Fantasy Ground, etc ), or in person? Pre- in person almost exclusively, Post- Roll20 + Discord
How long do your sessions typically run? Pre- 6 hours on average, Post- 3 of the 4 average six hours, the 4th is usually three hours (it's on a weeknight).
How stable are those groups? Are they run a Campaign of 6-12 months and then the group shuffles and finds new Players? Have you been running with the same Players for 30 years? Pre- 1st will be 3 years next month, 2nd 10 months, 3rd 8 months, Post- same three campaigns as pre but added another that's not about 3 months in. The player/DM mix is from group of about 10-12 people
How old you might be ( within a decade or two )? 36 as of today
How many Campaigns are you involved in? 7
How many of those are you involved in as a GM vs. as a Player? I GM 4 games, 1 for a group, and 3 for solo players.
How often does that group get together to play? Group game is every week Satuday, 1 solo game is every week Tuesday barring changes, other solo games are as desired/able but usually one of them once per week.
Do you play online ( Discord, Google Hangouts, Roll20, Fantasy Ground, etc ), or in person? All games are live in person except two of the games I play in on Discord.
How long do your sessions typically run? Sat. group campaign is noon-midnight with dinner break at 6-7pm. Tuesday solo game is 9am to 5pm with Lunch around 1pm. Tuesday evening Discord 5e game is 7pm to 10/11pm. Tuesday late pathfinder game is after 5e until 2/3/4am. Other solo games are generally 7pm-midnight.
How stable are those groups? Are they run a Campaign of 6-12 months and then the group shuffles and finds new Players? Have you been running with the same Players for 30 years? All in person games are with friends I have been gaming with for 20ish years. Discord games are with a group I met here about 2 months ago.
Wednesday Group (tabletop that moved to online in 2019): DM - Caucasian Male Late 20s - Early 30s, 1 Married Caucasian Male Late 20s - Early 30s, 2 Male Caucasian Males Early 30s, 1 Caucasian Female 20s-30s?, 1 Married Caucasian Male 50s Friday Group(s) - Online: 50's x2 both Male, 20's-30s - 1 Male, Teen-Early 20's - 1 Male (1 Female 30's?, 1 Male 40's?). This is the challenge of Online Play when you have never met face to face and usually only see an Avatar. No clue on ages and no reason to ask...
How old you might be ( within a decade or two )? between 5 and 6 decades. I started playing with first edition.
How many Campaigns are you involved in? currently 4
How many of those are you involved in as a GM vs. as a Player? Only 1 as GM. I do not think I could run multiple campaigns well.
How often does that group get together to play? Monday & Wednesday groups are weekly. Friday is every other week as is the Family game (on alternate weekends)
Do you play online ( Discord, Google Hangouts, Roll20, Fantasy Ground, etc ), or in person? currently 1 game in Discord, 1 in Roll20, and 2 in person. Ideally, they would all be in person. (maybe... someday... soon?)
How long do your sessions typically run? Weekday (weekly) games usually run 2.5- 3 hour sessions. The every other week games are on weekends and tend to be a bit longer, but rarely more then four hours. (I would note that younger players have a really hard time sitting still for too long.)
How stable are those groups? Are they run a Campaign of 6-12 months and then the group shuffles and finds new Players? Have you been running with the same Players for 30 years? 30 years? The only person I have gamed with that long is my husband. You have seen those posts about people always searching for a good DM? I found the best one and eventually I married him. Now, I get the first spot in anything he runs. As for current groups...
The core of Wednesday game is 4 players who have been together around 18 years. We have switched systems and GMs multiple times and a few players have come and gone, but essentially we have been together that long. There are also several newer players in that group making a total of 7 PCs. [Yes, I have my hands full.] The latest player is eighteen and comes with his father.
Monday group is three married couples and has been playing together for 14-15 years. Again systems and GMs alternate. It has only been about 1 years since we got them all switched to 5E.
The game with family is about 2 years old now and has just started it's second campaign. (The first one was a level 1-8).
And finally, the game we play every other Friday, started in January of this year. GM said it would be a level 1-20 campaign, and PCs are now level 6. I'd guess we will have around 24 months on that one.
I'm just curious how many of us run the stereotypical 4-5 people around the table on Thursday nights for 3 hours, 2-3 sessions a month kind of game - and how many of us are running much much more than that. Ideally, I want 5-7 people around the table once a week; and two of those games per week. That way I always get a chance to play in one -- especially if I am running. Covid had disrupted a lot, but fortunately not everything.
Also for Lyxen, I am in the western United States.
I apologize if this post is too long. The short answer to "How often do you play?" is "As often as I can." I am a confirmed gamer geek.
] Ideally, I want 5-7 people around the table once a week; and two of those games per week. That way I always get a chance to play in one -- especially if I am running. Covid had disrupted a lot, but fortunately not everything.
Thanks for the feedback :)
It's interesting how our preferences differ :) My "sweet spot" for group size is 4-5. I've never run more than one Campaign at a time - but I think one online, and one in person would be a good balance.
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Ideally I'd like to play weekly, alternating between my campaign and someone else's. Heck I'd settle for -- maybe even prefer -- 2 different game systems. Say, I DM for D&D, someone else GMs for Champions... or DCC... or something else. I'd just like to play some of the time too.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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So far, I'm surprised at the results.
The average DM age is skewing higher than I expected; the age of campaigns is skewing lower than I'd expected. Time in play is about what I expected.
Of course, there are impressive exceptions! 33 year campaign?! Playing for 8 hour sessions?!
Number of Campaigns is insane. I suspect that's connected to a the young age of a lot of them, and their number, is being influenced by COVID-19 lockdowns; it might be interesting to revisit this thread a year or so after the vaccine becomes widely available.
I also think I see a trend where younger DMs have time for more Campaigns. I'm jealous ;)
I appreciate the feedback so far, thanks :)
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Not a bad reference point :) I was born pre-Apollo 11 landing as well ... but by less than a year :)
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
You could count mine in weeks...
How old you might be ( within a decade or two )? 19 yo
How many Campaigns are you involved in? 2 right now, and another one thats on indefinite hiatus. Also DMing a 2 shot adventure thats hopefully gonna be finished up tomorrow.
How many of those are you involved in as a GM vs. as a Player? 1 as a DM, 1 as a player (and the one thats on hiatus I also DM for)
How often does that group get together to play? The one I DM for plays about 1-2x a week, the one that I play in is pretty on and off, but when we were consistently playing it was 1x a week
Do you play online ( Discord, Google Hangouts, Roll20, Fantasy Ground, etc ), or in person? Typically in person, but due to summer break and quarantine its all been online for the past couple months on roll20
How long do your sessions typically run? Ehh, depends on when we start, but usually 3-5 hours
How stable are those groups? Are they run a Campaign of 6-12 months and then the group shuffles and finds new Players? Have you been running with the same Players for 30 years? I play with two different groups of people. One of which is a group of my college friends where people join in and out, and leave, etc etc. Very wishy-washy, but I have a good couple that consistently play. The other one is a group of friends from home, and we usually all play together whenever we do a new campaign/adventure.
just a person who likes games and has zero free time
I'm a little over three decades old.
Currently I'm playing with three groups.
I'm the GM for two games and a player for one.
One of the game is every other week, the other two are weekly (with the occasional gap week). Usually play on a Tuesday, Friday and Saturday.
Used to have one face-to-face, however all are currently online through Roll20 & Discord.
Two of the games run for around three hours per session, the game that used to be face-to-face has around four hour sessions. Sometimes when we were doing the face-to-face games, we'd have a long six hour game but it would have a good hour break where we'd all enjoy a group dinner half way through the game.
They're all mostly stable groups, a few players have dipped out of one of them or have gone on a long-term break but the majority have stuck together.
One has been going for around three years with us rotating the GM for new campaigns, another is just coming onto the second year together and the third has been together for around fourteen years.
With the group that has the rotation not he GM, the campaigns run for approximately eight to twelve months on average and then the next GM takes over and starts a campaign in the same world and continues the timeline so we're always playing in a world that has been changed by the adventure before it.
The group that is nearing their second year together have been playing in the same campaign for that length of time.
Then my long running group face-to-face group have played through a couple of very long campaigns; the current one they're playing through has been going for about seven years so far.
I live in a small village within the south west countryside of England.
I'm a college kid, I run one game for three of my friends, with a 3-4 hour session once a week in person. We've played for a year, but cut the group down from 5 people (it was a mess) a few months ago. I also run games for my old high school friends over the summer (we've played for a few years), but that's it. We used to play weekly but it's become super spotty this year.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
-- I am 36 and from The Netherlands. Players at my current table are between 20-26.
-- Currently only 1. I tried more, but there are other hobbies that I do as well. So cut off all other games to focus on this 1.
-- I ran 2 campaigns and played in 2 others last year to beginning this year.
-- My own campaign is where all the attention goes. Every other saturday we get together at 15:00. we chat, ask questions, set things up. Begin playing at 16:00 till 18:00. Then we use 1 hour to cook a meal and eat together. Resuming from 19:00 till 22:00. Making it 5 hours played every other week. There is very few to none out of character stuff happening as well. So quality 5 hours of play.
-- I tried DM'ing and playing online. It just isn't for me. I need to see people's body language etc. So I only play in person at the table.
-- 5 hours in total.
-- As mentioned earlier. I experimented with online play and other campaigns. Just didn't work. My own campaign is run for friends who asked. It is pretty stable. 1 or 2 players left due to private situations. Other friends joined to take their place. Overall there have always been 4 - 7 players. This campaign is 2 years or so running. 40 sessions played. lvl 6 PC's.
When growing up I played AD&D up to 3.5 with the same people for around a decade. I was mostly a player in that with occasional DM'ing for them as well. Playing occasional short adventures through IRC back then with strangers I met in various groups.
That's another interesting facet that we hadn't been discussing: what's the demographic breakdown of your Players?
Until this last group I'd always played with people roughly my own age. This last group was more demographically diverse - from early 20s up to 60-something.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I have 4 players
Female 28 and 30
Male 32 and 35
Myself, male 38.
I don't know the exact ages of everyone but I think we are all 30s-50s. One female, 4 males.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
the player demographic is varied. all within the 20-25 age bracket
1 woman, disabled in wheelchair
1 woman with social anxieties with asian heritage
1 black dude with adhd
1 indonesian/australian dude that is more a sporty type
1 a typical white dude that works with animals
and i'm your typical white dude. going towards middle aged antics. talking about all the things i achieved in the past. in the field of work and european athlete performances. while right now i'm not really achieving much or doing anything other than just play games, chill, eat way too many snacks. sitting out my days till retirement.
In short quite diverse i'd say. and funny part is... we all hate the forced fake inclusivity, identity movements occurring everywhere. Those just cause more segregation instead of unity.
I'll put both Pre and Post Covid answers since it's changed considerably.
Hmmmm... Demographics you say?
Wednesday Group (tabletop that moved to online in 2019): DM - Caucasian Male Late 20s - Early 30s, 1 Married Caucasian Male Late 20s - Early 30s, 2 Male Caucasian Males Early 30s, 1 Caucasian Female 20s-30s?, 1 Married Caucasian Male 50s
Friday Group(s) - Online: 50's x2 both Male, 20's-30s - 1 Male, Teen-Early 20's - 1 Male (1 Female 30's?, 1 Male 40's?). This is the challenge of Online Play when you have never met face to face and usually only see an Avatar. No clue on ages and no reason to ask...
I'm just curious how many of us run the stereotypical 4-5 people around the table on Thursday nights for 3 hours, 2-3 sessions a month kind of game - and how many of us are running much much more than that. Ideally, I want 5-7 people around the table once a week; and two of those games per week. That way I always get a chance to play in one -- especially if I am running. Covid had disrupted a lot, but fortunately not everything.
Also for Lyxen, I am in the western United States.
I apologize if this post is too long. The short answer to "How often do you play?" is "As often as I can." I am a confirmed gamer geek.
Thanks for the feedback :)
It's interesting how our preferences differ :) My "sweet spot" for group size is 4-5. I've never run more than one Campaign at a time - but I think one online, and one in person would be a good balance.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Ideally I'd like to play weekly, alternating between my campaign and someone else's. Heck I'd settle for -- maybe even prefer -- 2 different game systems. Say, I DM for D&D, someone else GMs for Champions... or DCC... or something else. I'd just like to play some of the time too.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.