Running a casual lunchtime game.

Being blessed with a bunch of gamers at work, I'm contemplating a lunchtime game that would run an hour a day for three days a week. I know from reading the Wizards page that they encourage lunch gaming, but I was wondering if many people here have done or tried this, and what strategies that they have used to make short time periods like that more successful rather than less successful.

Thanks for the advice
Jeremy

Mike Mearls talked about this some. I think he planned one major fight per lunch game, and made sure to have everything set up ahead of time.

Piratecat said:

Mike Mearls talked about this some. I think he planned one major fight per lunch game, and made sure to have everything set up ahead of time.

Click to expand...

Of course, HE had it a bit easier finding a handwave for his boss why he was spending his time setting up a D&D game....

I ran a 40-minute lunchtime game every day in high school. We used AD&D 1e, the then-current game, which plays pretty fast if you ignore segments, weapon speeds, etc. We didn't use miniatures, they would have been impractical and the game played quicker without them. The game was fast, lots of combat, with high mortality and advancement, each 40 minute session we got done roughly what it took 4 hours to do in 3e. Thus PCs who survived eventually got very powerful.

Other successful rules systems I ran for lunchtime games included Star Wars d6, Paranoia, and Call of Cthulu. I played Judge Dredd (Games Workshop version) too.

I think my main advice would be: don't use miniatures, don't use a complex combat system like 3e if you plan to have lots of combat, make sure combats can be finished within the allocated time, don't sweat the small stuff and aim to get lots done each session.