D&D General How many hours of D&D would you say you have played in your entire life?

[Slit518]

If you had to estimate the amount of hours you have played D&D in your entire life, how many would you say it is?

I started playing in the summer of 1999 with 2nd edition, and since then I have played a little of 1st, a ton of 3.0/3.5, a small bit of 4th, and a lot of 5th.

With the average game length being ~3 hours, and the longest game I was in being 16 hours, I would say I have played a fair amount, but, not as much as folks who have a consistent game where they play weekly.

I would estimate my hours to be around 500 hours of D&D in my life.

 

[darjr]

Oh my…

 

[Fanaelialae]

This is a very rough estimate, but I'd ballpark it somewhere between 5,000 to 7,000 hours of table time. More if you include things like game prep and reading supplements.

 

[Marc_C]

Impossible to tell really after 41 years.

The early 80s we played very often as in several nights a week and weekends for 5 to 8 hours. Late 80s once every three months for 4-5 hours. The 90s played once every three weeks for 8-12 hours. The 2000-2018 played twice a month for 4-5 hours. 2019-21 every two weeks for 3-4 hours.

 

[TwiceBorn2]

Not nearly enough!

I played ALOT when I was a teenager in the mid-late 80s, with one memorable session of Palace of the Silver Princess lasting about 18 hours straight (my best friend was over for a D&D sleepover... those were the days!). I played a lot of D&D red/blue box, and then played alot more inconsistently since then... I think I had a huge gap from 1991-2003 where I didn't play at all.

If we include Pathfinder 1.0 as D&D, I've played in fits and starts since 2003. Just started DMing my first 5e game shortly before the pandemic struck, and I don't enjoy online gaming very much, so... hopefully I can get the guys around the table again soon.

All that to say, while I've continued to amass D&D books from all editions over a 35+ year period, it's really hard for me to estimate actual number of hours played.

 

[overgeeked]

Sometimes weekly, sometimes monthly sessions. Sometimes 4-6 hour, sometimes 8-10 hour sessions, sometimes entire weekends. Been playing since 1984. So let's guess a low and a high. Low: monthly, 5-hour sessions...that's about 2200 hours. High: weekly, 10-hour sessions...that's 17,760 hours. Probably closer to the middle, so somewhere around 9980 hours.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Time is just an artificial construct, and ….

(quick calculations)

Oh god. What have I done. WHAT HAVE I DONE WITH MY LIFE????

 

[Ruin Explorer]

We've played frequently but irregularly a lot and session lengths varied wildly between 3 and 12 hours (longest ever was about 72 lol if you allowed sleeping because we literally couldn't stay awake to count as not breaking the session), so I couldn't realistically estimate table-time - I'd be bullshitting. But a lot. Still probably less than the amount I've played MMOs, but that's because you don't have to get people together to play MMOs. 10 hours of D&D is more total "fun had" than 100 hours of even the best MMOs, in my experience.

 

[GuyBoy]

Wow: a lot......it’s a bit like one of those life breakdowns where you discover you’ve spent twenty years asleep.
I haven’t played D&D to quite Rip van Winkle timescales, but it’s a huge number of hours.
45 years since I started. Played most weekends as a teenager for a few hours, fitting around rugby, social life and even some schoolwork. A couple of 24 hour marathon sessions.
Less since work, marriage and parenthood, but still play for one weekend in every 5 or 6.
Guesstimate = 7000 hours

 

[Ath-kethin]

What counts as playing?

I've been a Forever DM™ for almost 30 years. Like any DM, during that time I've developed countless plots, characters, storylines, worlds, despots, NPCs, monsters, vehicles, weapons, and more - it's fair to say I'm thinking about D&D at least 60-70% of the time, and there've been times in my life where the proportion was much higher. Especially when I was I high school.

Actually sitting around a table (physical or virtual) and playing? A much, much smaller percentage of the time, by nature.

So by calculations, I've been actively thinking about playing D&D for around 200,000 hours, give or take.

Actually at a table watching/making it happen? Sadly, much less.