Session time and level advancement (ie, how many hours gametime for a level)

Cool discussion. Unfortunately I run my games online (play by post and chat), so I really can't comment. I can say it's about 3 months per adventure, and I level the PCs up 2 levels between adventures, but I don't know what that translates to in table time.

Draegn said:

I recall a letter in Dragon magazine (Leomond's Tiny Hut) where it was mentioned it should take two years of real time to reach seventh level assuming playing 8-12 hours one weekend a month.

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I am assuming that was AD&D? Leveling in AD&D was MUCH more slow that subsequent editions. My highest AD&D character was level 13 and that was after playing weekly 8-hour sessions for 4 years during college (approx. 1600 hours). For comparison, the checkpoint system in XGtE will get you to 13 in about 72 hours of play time!

Players level whenever they have earned enough XP to do so, or have completed a quest that awards a level.
-Right now, I run a mix of XP and Milestones: The "main quests" award Milestone upon completion. However a number of side-quests can be picked up to earn XP. Since XP is a scaling system, how do you reconcile this Sunseeker? Well, I've just made every "level" worth 1000 XP and a side-quest is likely to award ~250 Xp in total.

Quest-oriented players with their nose to the grind can do this quickly (though sometimes I have trouble keeping up!). Players who don't well...don't.

What I've usually found is that we'll level about once a month or every other session (we play every two weeks). Quest oriented players can do this faster if they are really dedicated, but I find it averages out to completing about two minor quests per session, and one "major quest line" every couple months.

I typically shoot for PCs leveling every two sessions. For my adult group that is typically 8-10 hours. For my kid group that is around 4 hours.

It depends highly. We've had sessions where the PCs sat and planned the entire time - accumulating no experience for level advancement purposes, but havinga great time and moving the story ahead. We've also seen the PCs burn through dungeon and walk out the other side with 12 to 15 combats completed in 6 hours of gaming. It could be anywhere from 6 to 40 hours.

I think a lot of campaign style choices for me come from 1e AD&D. I just like the Gygaxian playstyle.

So if you get to 18th level, you been playing six or seven years weekly for four hours. Does that mean a lot of campaigns don't make it that far? Sure. It's fun all along the way so it doesn't bother me.

I think getting to 5th level though should be pretty quick. Maybe 100 hours. (25 weeks).

If you follow the guidelines in the DMG for encounter designs and have 3 to 4 encounters in a 3 to 5 hour weekly session, you should expect to advance to 20th level in about 50 to 70 weeks of play. In my experience, it is more like 100 weeks when you factor in weeks lost to missed sessions, early ends, late starts, and sessions sidetracked by discussions of the most recent Marvel movies.

IMO here's my ideal: when you have thoroughly explored what you can do at level X, then it's time to advance to level X+1. I'd guesstimate around 15-30 hours of session time, with variables depending on class and path. For example, gaining the ability to cast Plane Shift, opens up a wider range of story options, than gaining the level 13 Berserker Barbarian ability.

AriochQ said:

I have one group that plays monthly, each session 6-8 hours. Given how infrequently we play, I have essentially gone to a milestone'ish system. Each adventure they get 1/3-1/2 of the experience needed for the next level. Given how infrequently we play, I wanted the PC's to be able to advance and eventually get to level 20 (which would take about 50 sessions/months. i.e. 4 years in real time).

Ironically, in my bi-weekly game, I also prefer for characters to level about every two months.

I have come to the conclusion, that I don't really care how many hours a PC has played, or how many monsters they have killed. I find it more satisfying for both players and DM if there is gradual growth. It lets the players mess around with new abilities/spells and me, as DM, mess around with different monsters and challenges. If we played more frequently, a weekly game for instance, I would probably adhere more to the RAW for experience/level gain.

If I am not mistaken, Adventurer's League will be adopting the checkpoint system from XGtE. 1-4 level each 4-hour adventure, 5-9 level every two 4-hour adventures, etc.

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My situation is very similar. I run a monthly game, each session lasting 8 hours (6-7 being actual play after subtracting time for lunch, late starts, breaks, etc.). In my first campaign, I started with XP, then changed to milestone leveling, and eventually ended with 1 level a session. That was a homebrew campaign. When I go back to homebrew, I plan to start with a type of milestone leveling that would be 1 level per session with the idea that the party comes together for some mission or quest, but have separate lives between sessions. So the next session doesn't start where the last left off, but instead years may have past. I like being able to get through 21 levels (I ported the DCC level-0 "funnel" concept into my home-brew 5e game) in two years of monthly play (planning for a few months when we have to skip).

I took a break from my homebrew campaign and am now playing Curse of Strahd. In this campaign, I use a slightly modified version of R. Padron's A Structured Milestone System for Curse of Strahd (available on the DM's Guild). I like it because it is more granular than the typical milestone approach and gives the players more agency over how and how quickly they level. Basically, it gives points for a variety of accomplishments, including finding items/NPCs foretold during the Tarokka reading, defeating major enemies, thwarting Strahds goals, finding magic items, moving the story forward, exploring different locations. You level up when you accumulate sufficient points. The number of points you need depends on your party size. I've found that it works very well and I plan to use a similar approach for any published campaign. It doesn't work as well for my homebrew, however, because that is not fully fleshed out when I start a campaign in my homebrew world. Instead, I design the next month's adventure based upon what happened in the last.

MNblockhead said:

I ported the DCC level-0 "funnel" concept into my home-brew 5e game

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Not to totally derail, but I'm always looking for ideas on how to do level 0. I think it's a great way to extend the session-0 concept where the group gets to know each other before they go on an adventure.