Game sessions - time, frequency, etc (and a poll about combat time)

[DumbPaladin]

D&D Edition: 3.5
Game Frequency: Two times per month
Session Time: Starts at 1 pm, ends at 9 to 10 pm, sometimes 10:30 pm.
Session Length: Usually 8 hours, but sometimes 9
Combats per session: Average is 1-2 per session, but varies wildly
Combat length: Usually between 45 min and 1 hr, 30min; occasionally a 2+ hr combat for a major villain.
Percent of Session Devoted to Combat: Usually 50%, if only 1 or 2 combats.

We've had several sessions with absolutely no combat (a 6-week mostly political storyline that ended with only one combat), but last week's session was 5 different combats en route to the Big Bad.

 

[Vegepygmy]

D&D Edition: 3.5
Game Frequency: Every Wednesday
Session Time: Arrival time is 5:30 to 6:00 pm, starting actual play by 7:00 usually, because the DM gets easily distracted while setting up, and ending around 9:30 or 10:00.
Session Length: 3 hours on average
Combats per session: Usually just 1
Combat length: 30-90 minutes
Percent of Session Devoted to Combat: Typically 40-60%

D&D Edition: 3.5
Game Frequency: Every Saturday
Session Time: Online game using MapTool, logins begin promptly at 9:00 pm, play begins no later than 9:15 and ends as close to midnight as possible.
Session Length: Approximately 3 hours
Combats per session: Rarely more than 1
Combat length: Typically 2-3 hours, but we have had a single combat stretch over 2 or more sessions a few times. We don't use any voice-chat, so everything has to be typed out, and both combat and role-play take much longer than in person.
Percent of Session Devoted to Combat: Probably 70-80%

 

[howandwhy99]

D&D Edition: OE
Game Frequency: Every 2-4 weeks. (I'm currently on hiatus)
Session Time: 12am to 6pm Sundays.
Session Length: 6 hours solid gaming, pretty much always.
Combats per session: Zero to 8? 9? Probably 2-3 mean average
Combat length: Everywhere from <1 minute to 1 1/2 hours. This can be less than a turn to over 20 turns. The number of combatants affects length a lot too. On average, for a good fight I'd say 20-40 minutes real time.
Percent of Session Devoted to Combat: In 6 hours anywhere from 0 to 50%, maybe 60% in unusual cases. We spend a lot of time campaigning, so even our combats don't feel like minis skirmish games. Any action manageable within a 1 minute round is an option, and we the players aren't tracking this limitation slavishly, (the Ref does ).

 

[Jhaelen]

D&D Edition: 3.5
Game Frequency: about once a month.
Session Time: Saturday, 3:30pm until at least 1am
Session Length: 10-12 hours.
Combats per session: almost always 2 (but 0-1 also possible), sometimes 3 (typically inclusing one 'easy' combat)
Combat length: typically at least 2 hours, significantly longer for boss fights (e.g. 8 hours), rarely shorter (about 1 hour for an 'easy' combat). On average 3-4 hours, I guess.
Percent of Session Devoted to Combat: Varies wildly (from 0-100%), average 50-67%, I guess.

Other relevant statistics:
#players: 4-9 (6 on average)
(current) level: 12-15 (effective party level is 15)

 

[Jon_Dahl]

D&D Edition: 3.5
Game Frequency: Every week
Session Time: Arrival time is by 18:00, ending the game at 21:30 - 22:45
Session Length: 3½ - 4½ hours
Combats per session: Varies a lot, maybe average of 2
Combat length: 45 minutes to 2 hours.
Percent of Session Devoted to Combat: 33%, maybe more.

 

[IronWolf]

D&D Edition: Pathfinder
Game Frequency: Weekly
Session Time: Start at 6pm about
Session Length: 4-5 hours
Combat length: Not too long, I don't time it. Last session it was really long but that was an aberation as it was the climatic combat to the first part of the campaign.
Percent of Session Devoted to Combat: Not much, we go through combat pretty well.

The biggest factor of it is we are running Kingmaker. There are not dungeons or places to explore that have lots of combat.

This.

 

[DragonLancer]

D&D Edition: Pathfinder.
Game Frequency: Every Sunday evening.
Session Time: 7:30pm.
Session Length: 3 to 4 hours.
Combats per session: Varies.
Combat length: Varies but average 5-10 minutes.
Percent of Session Devoted to Combat: Roughly 50% but again varies depending on scenario and player choices.

 

[LostSoul]

D&D Edition: Hacked 4E.
Game Frequency: Weekly.
Session Time: 7 PM.
Session Length: About 3.5 hours.
Combats per session: 2 on average.
Combat length: 15 to 90 minutes, average being around 30 minutes.
Percent of Session Devoted to Combat: 30%.

 

[OnlineDM]

D&D Edition: 4E
Game Frequency: Weekly
Session Time: 6:00 PM Mountain (see below)
Session Length: 4 hours
Combats per session: 2-3
Combat length: Around an hour
Percent of Session Devoted to Combat: 60%-80%
Note that this is an online game played using MapTool. We're playing the War of the Burning Sky saga (currently near the end of the Fire Forest). We start at 6:00 PM in the US Mountain Time Zone where I live (as does one of my players), which is 5:00 PM for one person on the west cost, 7:00 PM for one person in the Central Time Zone, 8:00 PM for two players in the Eastern Time Zone and 2:00 AM Saturday for one brave soul in London (you rock, Oly!).

D&D Edition: 4E
Game Frequency: Weekly
Session Time: Gather at either 4:00 PM Saturday or 10:00 AM Sunday; play starts around 4:30 on Saturday or 11:00 on Sunday (we do brunch first on Sunday).
Session Length: 6-7 hours
Combats per session: 3-4
Combat length: An hour or so.
Percent of Session Devoted to Combat: 50-70%
This is for my in-person game, which I've only run for two and a half sessions so far. We'll have brunch together at the beginning of the session when we play on Sundays, and when we play on Saturdays we'll break for dinner around 7:00 or so.