So my party have just levelled to level 6, and I realised as I wrote my DM journal that this was session 55, so real game time 165-170 hours, over about 14 months but, in game, only 4 weeks.
So it got me wondering, what is the slowest game you have played, as in the shortest amount of time in game time for the longest in real time?
My longest running campaign starts session 34 tomorrow, where the players will hopefully level up to level 11. We first started the campaign 21 months ago. I reckon the campaign has about 10-15 sessions left where they will probably end up at around level 13.
My longest running campaign starts session 34 tomorrow, where the players will hopefully level up to level 11. We first started the campaign 21 months ago. I reckon the campaign has about 10-15 sessions left where they will probably end up at around level 13.
I was in a campaign that was extremely fast moving, I joined at level 5, my backgroupd was a harper faction agent which granted us access to their network of teleportation circles so travel between cites and several other points was instantanious. I am not sure exactly how long it took from me joining to us entering the bosses lair (which levelled us from 9 to 10), but we were probably getting a long rest every two or three sessions, real time it took about 10 months or 30 sessions of about 3 hours.
The boss's lair was HUGE and long rests were hard to find. (there ewas actually a mschine that would give you the effect of a long rest in 10 minutes but it was in virtually the last place we explored before going to where we had worked out the boss was If the lair we got a level up at every long rest and a couple in the middle of the day. The lair took about 4 days for our characters but about 6 months for us. We ended the campaign at level 16. The lair was crazy, ppeople say the PHB guide of 6-8 encounters per day on average never really happens, in that lair were getting twice that. REsource management was critical.
Overall probably about 3 weeks game time for a 15 month campaign. When I joind the campaign I told the DM my (gnome) was 199 years old with thee plant of casually mentioning he would be 200 in a couple of weeks at some point and see how the other PCs reacted but he never had a chance.
In the game I run with sessions a little more frequent than once a month, we have had about sixteen sessions. Most of those were four hours or more, with some quite a bit more. Six players, only one with 5e experience, and one more with AD&D experience. They just advanced to level 4. I am tracking XP and distributing it evenly so everyone advances at the same moment. I believe in game about 21 days have gone by. A big contributing factor is that my sister-in-law is playing a very inquisitive curious gnome. She ends up checking all kinds of stuff out to see if she can get a deal or mysteriously acquire stuff now and then. I have been paying them a small amount to do this or that as they travel, and letting them grab weapons and armor and stuff to sell as they go, but used armor and worn weapons don't fetch a big price. The Bard, another gnome, makes some money in each town playing at the inn.
They just entered the Wilderness so there won't be any opportunities to sell stuff for quite some time. They are on a quest to make contact with the Orcs, to establish a degree of diplomatic relations. The human kingdom had run the Orcs off a fair sized piece of territory (about the size of Connecticut) on the edge of the settled world in a space as vast as the American West. They (the humans) have been warned by The Dragons that they better make peace with the Orcs because now they have exposed the human kingdom to new terrors and threats that were threatening only the Orcs in the past.
Anyway, in 21 game days, the party has advanced to level 4.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
My group is currently playing Storm King’s Thunder with a bunch of extras crammed in. We play 4 hours a week. 22 months in, we are level 10 and something like 3 maybe 4 months of time have passed in game.
We just did Session 16, started in August 2021, and in game time about 3 - 4 weeks have gone past. Been some meandering around in this one (Dragon Heist), getting close to end. and then we'll probably go onto the next one.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Odo Proudfoot - Lvl 10 Halfling Monk - Princes of the Apocalypse (Campaign Finished)
I had a GM who'd insist on spending hours introducing every new character to the party. Given that we were playing an open game in a comic book shop, we got one or two new PCs every session and most of them would never show up again. But the GM would insist on keeping the characters around in the party for at least four sessions, where they sucked up XP and loot.
It took over a year to get to level 2.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I had a GM who'd insist on spending hours introducing every new character to the party. Given that we were playing an open game in a comic book shop, we got one or two new PCs every session and most of them would never show up again. But the GM would insist on keeping the characters around in the party for at least four sessions, where they sucked up XP and loot.
It took over a year to get to level 2.
Wow that's crazy! The first levels are usually pretty fast.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
I had a GM who'd insist on spending hours introducing every new character to the party. Given that we were playing an open game in a comic book shop, we got one or two new PCs every session and most of them would never show up again. But the GM would insist on keeping the characters around in the party for at least four sessions, where they sucked up XP and loot.
It took over a year to get to level 2.
Wow that's crazy! The first levels are usually pretty fast.
This was back in 3.0 when it took your current level times one thousand to get to the next level, but it was still a ridiculously long time as we were getting only 25-50 XP per session sometimes. We even had a session that was devoted almost entirely to introducing a new character to the party, only for him to get himself killed by the town guards before he'd even met the party (he went into the roughest bar in town despite being a 1st level wizard, started a fight, and got outed as a Vecna worshiper after the guards arrived).
So my party have just levelled to level 6, and I realised as I wrote my DM journal that this was session 55, so real game time 165-170 hours, over about 14 months but, in game, only 4 weeks.
So it got me wondering, what is the slowest game you have played, as in the shortest amount of time in game time for the longest in real time?
Initiative. Always.
“Magic is distilled laziness. Put that on my gravestone.”
Technically, it is instant in game world, but it takes 10 minutes in real world.
“Magic is distilled laziness. Put that on my gravestone.”
Lol I meant overall, Ours is a remote game so the players use DnD beyond for initiative so it takes just seconds lol
We are 10 months real time. 5 to 8 hour sessions every Sunday. In game time is around 3 weeks.
That's slow. I gotta pick it up.
My longest running campaign starts session 34 tomorrow, where the players will hopefully level up to level 11. We first started the campaign 21 months ago. I reckon the campaign has about 10-15 sessions left where they will probably end up at around level 13.
how long has progressed in game time?
I was in a campaign that was extremely fast moving, I joined at level 5, my backgroupd was a harper faction agent which granted us access to their network of teleportation circles so travel between cites and several other points was instantanious. I am not sure exactly how long it took from me joining to us entering the bosses lair (which levelled us from 9 to 10), but we were probably getting a long rest every two or three sessions, real time it took about 10 months or 30 sessions of about 3 hours.
The boss's lair was HUGE and long rests were hard to find. (there ewas actually a mschine that would give you the effect of a long rest in 10 minutes but it was in virtually the last place we explored before going to where we had worked out the boss was If the lair we got a level up at every long rest and a couple in the middle of the day. The lair took about 4 days for our characters but about 6 months for us. We ended the campaign at level 16. The lair was crazy, ppeople say the PHB guide of 6-8 encounters per day on average never really happens, in that lair were getting twice that. REsource management was critical.
Overall probably about 3 weeks game time for a 15 month campaign. When I joind the campaign I told the DM my (gnome) was 199 years old with thee plant of casually mentioning he would be 200 in a couple of weeks at some point and see how the other PCs reacted but he never had a chance.
In the game I run with sessions a little more frequent than once a month, we have had about sixteen sessions. Most of those were four hours or more, with some quite a bit more. Six players, only one with 5e experience, and one more with AD&D experience. They just advanced to level 4. I am tracking XP and distributing it evenly so everyone advances at the same moment. I believe in game about 21 days have gone by. A big contributing factor is that my sister-in-law is playing a very inquisitive curious gnome. She ends up checking all kinds of stuff out to see if she can get a deal or mysteriously acquire stuff now and then. I have been paying them a small amount to do this or that as they travel, and letting them grab weapons and armor and stuff to sell as they go, but used armor and worn weapons don't fetch a big price. The Bard, another gnome, makes some money in each town playing at the inn.
They just entered the Wilderness so there won't be any opportunities to sell stuff for quite some time. They are on a quest to make contact with the Orcs, to establish a degree of diplomatic relations. The human kingdom had run the Orcs off a fair sized piece of territory (about the size of Connecticut) on the edge of the settled world in a space as vast as the American West. They (the humans) have been warned by The Dragons that they better make peace with the Orcs because now they have exposed the human kingdom to new terrors and threats that were threatening only the Orcs in the past.
Anyway, in 21 game days, the party has advanced to level 4.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
My group is currently playing Storm King’s Thunder with a bunch of extras crammed in. We play 4 hours a week. 22 months in, we are level 10 and something like 3 maybe 4 months of time have passed in game.
We just did Session 16, started in August 2021, and in game time about 3 - 4 weeks have gone past. Been some meandering around in this one (Dragon Heist), getting close to end. and then we'll probably go onto the next one.
Odo Proudfoot - Lvl 10 Halfling Monk - Princes of the Apocalypse (Campaign Finished)
Orryn Pebblefoot - Lvl 5 Rock Gnome Wizard (Deceased) - Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (Deceased)
Anerin Ap Tewdr - Lvl 5 Human (Variant) Bard (College of Valor) - Waterdeep: Dragon Heist
I had a GM who'd insist on spending hours introducing every new character to the party. Given that we were playing an open game in a comic book shop, we got one or two new PCs every session and most of them would never show up again. But the GM would insist on keeping the characters around in the party for at least four sessions, where they sucked up XP and loot.
It took over a year to get to level 2.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Wow that's crazy! The first levels are usually pretty fast.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
This was back in 3.0 when it took your current level times one thousand to get to the next level, but it was still a ridiculously long time as we were getting only 25-50 XP per session sometimes. We even had a session that was devoted almost entirely to introducing a new character to the party, only for him to get himself killed by the town guards before he'd even met the party (he went into the roughest bar in town despite being a 1st level wizard, started a fight, and got outed as a Vecna worshiper after the guards arrived).
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.