Explain "20 Minutes of Fun over 4 Hours" to me

[DM_Jeff]

Uh, there are *scheduled* bathroom breaks? Remind me never to play in your game . . .

Argh, this came out all wrong. What this means is when one person goes, usually a few others follow after and we take a small break is all, check on the kids and stuff. Came out all wrong, sorry! And it doesn't mean we have folks away from the table all night is all!

-DM Jeff

 

[Doug McCrae]

I played in some pretty boring games of D&D in my 20s. One in particular, set in Greyhawk, had a very good GM but the problem was it was very slow-moving and drawn out. We'd roleplay haggling with shopkeepers, travel would be described in a lot of detail (Lord of the Rings was a major inspiration) and other minutiae. They were some great moments in that game. For example a climactic battle with a necromancer we'd been chasing for a long time - the ranger stabbed him through the chest just as he contingency ported out. But on the whole it was quite dull.

That was very much 20 minutes of fun crammed into four hours, though I'm not sure it's quite what Dancey is referring to.

 

[Nifft]

I thought this was another dating thread... nevermind!

Nineteen minutes extra, -- N

 

[pawsplay]

Eh. My group generally follows a "play for two hours, then take a break" schedule -- fluctuating a bit depending on what's happening in the game. For the most part, people who need to hit the bathroom wait until a break.

I mean, we don't shoot you in the head if you need to hit the head before that.

Only when you fully comprehend the Dark Side will you know the true meaning of power.

 

[Desdichado]

I thought this was another dating thread... nevermind!

Nineteen minutes extra, -- N

Nah, twenty minutes would be far too long if that were the case. And that's assuming she puts out on the first date already, which probably isn't the best assumption.

 

[phindar]

Another thing to look as is players find different things fun, so two players might have totally different 20 mins of fun over the four hour session. The political players is going to be really jazzed about the party meeting with the king while the tactical player is voer there lining his dice up into nice little rows. Later, the tactical player is going to be cackling wildly as he bull rushes orcs off a cliff while the political player takes his d6+2 attack every round. It helps to have everybody on the same page as much as possible from the beginning.

 

[sniffles]

The trouble with that quote is that Dave Wise's wife was assuming that the non-roleplaying moments (or whatever moments she assessed as "non-fun") weren't fun for the players. Lots of people get a kick out of looking up and arguing over rules, kibbitzing, moving minis around the table, and other activities that aren't necessarily advancing the story or progressing the game.

 

[awayfarer]

I can't say I agree with that. If a game has about 20 minutes of fun every four hours than there must be something wrong with the group. My former WLD/curren Eberron group definitely gets in more than that and I've played a couple of one shot games (Providence game day last year) that certainly had more than just twenty minutes of fun.

My Middle Earth/Rolemaster group can often get bogged down but I think a goodly portion of that has to do with that system's special little foibles. I can only see the "twenty minutes of fun" scenario if...

1: The players don't give a damn
2: The DM doesn't know what they're doing/doesn't give a damn
3: The game system is awkward.

 

[KB9JMQ]

Sometimes I think we actually only get 20 minutes of gaming in during the 4 hours.
But all that other time is actually fun for the group.
I kinda comes and goes. Somedays we do game for over 3 hours of the session with very little "other" going on.
Laughing with a player about his character's near-death mistake is what makes the game.

 

[Mark CMG]

I've been experimenting with ways to stretch the twenty minutes into a few hours over the four hours. My new campaign has been running for about a month and although we could use a couple more players (two more due to join us later this coming month), things have been going very well. I'll get my thoughts together on this sometime this week and post an article up on my website.