How Long Can You DM ?

[cougent]

Way back in college there were undoubtedly some 24 hour sessions, but that was a long time ago.

In 2003 we did a long weekend marathon session that had some 8-12 hour durations over 4 days but also had some sleep and food breaks as well.

I schedule the game session for 6 hours now, which means about 5 of actual play time.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

16 hours, with a short break for food.

 

[exile]

It depends on how much material I have prepared. I hate "winging it" these days. The few sessions that I run usually last about 4-6 hours. There's a constant flow of players to and fro the table as people get snacks and drinks (or go smoke....eewwww, nasty).

Chad

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

There's an interesting phenomenon after the game too. Even if I'm too tired to play anymore, I still can't sleep. For hours. Until like 3 am. Too tired to game, to amped to sleep. This isn't just the caffeine (sometimes there is beer instead of Coke, after all), but it's psychology. Introverts get tired out by performances. Extroverts (me) get wired by them. For me, it's the same thing being a DM or being a musician -- anxious before, can't sleep afterwards. My guess is, this is why lots of rock musicians drink etc. after the show -- trying to turn off the hyped up mental state.

That would describe me as well (except for the beer). Back in high school I would run a game every Friday and Saturday night from 7pm until 2am but wouldn't fall asleep until close to 4am.

In the mid-to-late '80s and again in the early '90s I used to hold marathon games over the weekend, starting Saturday around 10am or so, taking a sleep break from 2am to 8am and gaming until late Sunday night and then driving home. I was a total wreck on Monday mornings.

In the mid-'90s I ran a game every alternate Saturday from 10:30am to Midnight and on the off-Sundays (when there was no game on Saturday) I would run a game from 1pm to 8pm or so. I did this for three years and it was a total blast.

Continuous game was probably 26-28 hours but frankly the quality of the game after 2am is pretty bad. I found that marathons work best when they start with breakfast.

I'd like to think that the real record my my bachelor party. In true D&D geekiness my "bachelor party" consisted of two oldtimers that had migrated to the SF Bay Area as well as myself, and flying in two other players from Denver. The 5 of us played from Saturday morning around 9am until Monday afternoon with sleep breaks of around 4-6 hours Saturday and Sunday nights. I used the opportunity to wrap up a number of loose ends in three different campaigns and pull them together into a final conclusion. It was very satisfying except that one player from Denver couldn't make it.

I really prefer the 7-hour game that starts in the early afternoon or the 12-hour game that starts in the morning. It take a while to socialize with each other, run town errands, and get in a good balance of roleplaying and combat. A typical 7-hour game will have two combats while a 12-hour game will have 3. I tried 4-hour games a few years ago because it was a weeknight but those games devolved into a single combat. Maybe it was 3rd edition or maybe it was because it was only a 4-hour session but I lost interest after a few months.

With a family now, my only hope is to start up a Friday 7pm-midnight game but haven't found the right group yet. So for the moment, playing Diablo II with one of my AD&D players will suffice. :\

 

[Woas]

Yikes. How do you guys go for these double digit length game sessions? Is it all just seat-of-your-pants story line or with a set adventure/module? What kind of prep goes into that kind of a game?
I have a hard time keeping on track near the end of my 3-4 hour games I run with 50/50 s-o-y-p and set adventure.

 

[The Green Adam]

Seems there is some confusion over whether we're talking about how long some of us having been GMing or how long we have GMed in a single setting. For me, that would be 30 years and 24 hours respectively.

AD

 

[the Jester]

When I was a kid, we played for about 36 hours without sleeping (G1-2-3 baby!), with only minimal breaks for food. Then we slept a night, then got up and played for about another 24 hours. By the time we were done, the pcs were deep into the D1-2-3 series.

 

[Goblyn]

The longest single session I ever ran was 14 hours long; it was fully seat-of-th-pants style. Nowadays sessions run 4-6 hours, but it's because of players' time constraints rather than burnout. They are all seat-of-the-pants style, too ... in fact, I've never even been able to read through an entire module, let alone run one.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Thanks to Cialis I can DM all night long...

So what your saying is that the Book of Erotic Fantasy is a part of your game, and that your DM screen is not for hiding your notes?

I think I will stick to my own game.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Eridanis]

Longest session ever was 12 hours, starting Temple of Elemental Evil in 1989. That wasn't too much longer than our regular sessions; they tended to go from noon to 8pm every Sunday.

Ah, college. That was the sweet spot for gaming. I played in a Friday night game that ran from 7pm to 2am or so, a Saturday afternoon game that generally ran from 1pm to 4pm, and that game I DMed on Sundays after football season. Nostalgia...