How Many Actual Sessions Do Your Campaigns Last?

Hussar · Jun 28, 2019

S'mon said:
Karameikos Campaign (Classic) 25 months to January 2017, ca level 1-18 at about 4 sessions/level, ca 72 total.

You are obviously playing the game entirely wrong dontchaknow? You aren't supposed to level that fast in classic D&D. You should still be second level after a hundred sessions.

S'mon · Jun 28, 2019

Hussar said:
You are obviously playing the game entirely wrong dontchaknow? You aren't supposed to level that fast in classic D&D. You should still be second level after a hundred sessions.

Well Mentzer said 5 sessions per level but it tended a bit faster in practice. Around 80 sessions and 18-19 levels over 2 years.

pogre · Jun 28, 2019

Average about 40 sessions of 4 hours each equaling 160 hours or so. However, that truly is an average - it is highly variable. Currently on session 33 of the current campaign and I expect it will go well past 40.

steenan · Jun 29, 2019

Our long campaigns last for 20-30 sessions, 4-6 hours each. It translates to 1-2 IRL years.

We have also played a few short (5-10 sessions) campaigns and a big number of single adventures (1-3 sessions).

The campaigns generally last until they get an appropriate closure. None of our campaigns in the last 10 years fizzled and were abandoned halfway.

Imaculata · Jun 29, 2019

Several years so far, and still going.

Scott Christian · Jul 3, 2019

Generally a year. Couple sessions a month. 4-6 hour sessions. This has been my experience with many different DM's. Also, for most of those D&D campaigns, we never made it above 10th level and never finished the story.

ART! · Jul 3, 2019

We had a mostly weekly D&D 5E game last from 1/2017 to 4/2019. The PCs went from 1st to 16th level. I ran most of that, but I increasingly handed over the reins to other players who wanted to DM. One of them is our new 5E DM, running in the same setting with the victorious PCs of the previous game as high-level NPCs now, so it's arguably the same game...?

In between, I ran a game of Masks for...6 sessions? We didn't really finish, but I seriously lost my GMing mojo.

Michael Silverbane · Jul 3, 2019

I don't know about most of the campaigns that I've been involved in, but for the last two that I've run, I have kept session logs.

The campaign previous to the current one ended after 73 sessions. Characters has just reached level 10. A couple of 'story arcs' had been completed, but several more were still in progress when the campaign ended due to the death of a player.

The current campaign just had its 64th session. Characters have just reached level 9. Three 'story arcs' are complete, one is very close to completion, two more are maybe a third to half-way through, and three more are one-quarter or less complete. An uncountable number of other possible story arcs have been passed by or discarded by the player characters (or the players).

By 'story arc' I mean a problem presented to the player characters that will take multiple sessions to solve, like, "The Draconian Empire is about to declare war on the planet that some of ~~you~~ y'all are from. Keep your home planet from getting wrecked." which was resolved via the player characters finding an alternate food source for the Draconian Empire (among several other solutions or possible solutions that were attempted or partially attempted and discarded) or "A mysterious crime family is gobbling up all the smaller crime syndicates in the sector. Find out what the eff is going on." which was resolved by the eventual taking over of the mysterious crime syndicate by one of the player characters (after going to 'work for' the mysterious crime syndicate and having the crime boss attempt to kill the player characters several times in an elaborate triple cross scheme between the player characters, a couple of planetary governments, and the crime syndicate). Or a goal that the player characters decided to pursue, like, "develop a faster than light communications network so that we can call each other when in different planetary systems." which also certainly helped resolve some of the other things or, "open an academy to train young psions to use their powers so they can defend themselves against the depredations of the Draconian Empire (and other forces that the player characters didn't know about at the time) which ended badly, but opened up another, even more revengier story arc.

Venley · Jul 4, 2019

Anywhere from about 250 to around 5000 hours depending on the game. Other than those where we are trying something out which may be 10-30 hours or so.
But proper campaigns go on for years: Al Qadim, L5R, Glorantha, Harn, Ars Magica, WFRP besides all the ancient D&D we played back in the day.
My main group mostly play for a weekend at a time, several times a year, plus a week around New Year.

Local groups generally a few hours at a time once a week but they are mostly shorter, perhaps 10, perhaps 50 sessions.

Lanefan · Jul 6, 2019

I count a campaign as being whatever happens within a particular game world or setting under the same DM involving one or more vaguely-continuous parties that share a common root. Players and PCs come and go over the long run.

So, on that basis my current campaign will hit session 796 tomorrow night (assuming no random life interrupts); it's been running since March 2008. And it's still got some legs to it; provided anyone wants to play I'd guess it's good for another 100-200 sessions as things stand at the moment.

The one before that went 782 sessions from mid 1995 to mid 2007 (there was a big gap in 1997-8 and it also slowed down some near the end).