AdmundfortGeographer
Getting lost in fantasy maps
What's with not using the same time lengths for each edition in the poll?
How long do your campaigns last, then and now?
- Thread starter Lanefan
- Start date
Man in the Funny Hat
Hero
Averages are tough to approximate without hard data and silly me I never kept my time cards or pay stubs from those old games.
I played in a 1E campaign that lasted nearly 10 years into the 2E era before it finally folded. About that time I started DMing and my campaigns lasted 2 years at best but a number of them folded within a year when summer came around and none of my players felt like spending weekends or evenings playing D&D instead of dating, going to the beach, etc. I never could understand that.
3E I had a campaign that ran for a solid year and a half and would likely still be running but I had commenced it with the unshakable intent that it be a game of finite duration, ending with the story arc and before the PC's exceeded 20th level. I liked having COMPLETED a "game" of D&D at the time but I haven't had a proper campaign since. They've been extremely short as I can't get my players to commit to the game anymore which is directly attributable to MMORPG's, and to a lesser extent other computer games. Asheron's Call was a problem when all my players were into that (thank God none of them played/liked Everquest!), but WoW has been a complete D&D killer. That combined with losing all my old players because we've all moved has now put me at square 1.
I played in a 1E campaign that lasted nearly 10 years into the 2E era before it finally folded. About that time I started DMing and my campaigns lasted 2 years at best but a number of them folded within a year when summer came around and none of my players felt like spending weekends or evenings playing D&D instead of dating, going to the beach, etc. I never could understand that.
3E I had a campaign that ran for a solid year and a half and would likely still be running but I had commenced it with the unshakable intent that it be a game of finite duration, ending with the story arc and before the PC's exceeded 20th level. I liked having COMPLETED a "game" of D&D at the time but I haven't had a proper campaign since. They've been extremely short as I can't get my players to commit to the game anymore which is directly attributable to MMORPG's, and to a lesser extent other computer games. Asheron's Call was a problem when all my players were into that (thank God none of them played/liked Everquest!), but WoW has been a complete D&D killer. That combined with losing all my old players because we've all moved has now put me at square 1.
Qualidar
First Post
This is a weird one for me: In the old days I used to run several campaigns at the same time with the same group. I'd rotate between campaigns every adventure: Forgotten Realms/Ravenloft/Oriental Adventures/Al-Quadim/Masque of the Red Death/Nordic Group. So I had campaigns that stretched over a large amount of playing time (and one that sort of continues to today), but were I to have run them straight they wouldn't have gone on that long. The actual reason I did rotate was to avoid my players/my own boredom with a campaign, and it worked great. Most of those old campaigns never officially "ended" and I have a couple (Al-Quadim and Kara Tur) waiting to resurface once I've finished up some current stuff.
~Qualidar~
~Qualidar~
DragonLancer
Hero
Then: About 6 months.
Now: A year to 18 months.
Now: A year to 18 months.
Sejs
First Post
Hrm. As others have said, not as easy to quantify, but I'll do my best.
Pre-3e: Around 2-4 years. Pretty much straight thru high school and thensome. Kind of dropped off toward the end, and we started interspersing Shadowrun, GURPS and WEG Star Wars in amongst our normal games.
Post-3e: 2-3 years and still going strong.
Pre-3e: Around 2-4 years. Pretty much straight thru high school and thensome. Kind of dropped off toward the end, and we started interspersing Shadowrun, GURPS and WEG Star Wars in amongst our normal games.
Post-3e: 2-3 years and still going strong.
Dragonbait
Explorer
Pre-3.X: Our campaigns died at about level 5 (4 sessions or so) I broke this and ran a 3 month campaign. My very first campaign lasted 5 months.
Post 3.X: Typically 3 months. Good ones last about 6 months. I had ONE that lasted 8 months. These are all me GMing. When someone else GMs - 3 to 4 sessions, with one that lasted 2 months.
Post 3.X: Typically 3 months. Good ones last about 6 months. I had ONE that lasted 8 months. These are all me GMing. When someone else GMs - 3 to 4 sessions, with one that lasted 2 months.
This is nigh impossible for me to answer.
Before the year 2000, I never really paid attention, so I just don't know.
After the year 2000... Our campaigns tend to last about 9 to 18 months. Except we also have short "campaigns" that either just don't grab the group's attention enough or that aren't really meant to last long term. In raw numbers (go figure--shorter campaigns tend to be more numerous) these would probably throw the average off badly.
And there are active plans afoot to resume a couple of the past campaigns.
Before the year 2000, I never really paid attention, so I just don't know.
After the year 2000... Our campaigns tend to last about 9 to 18 months. Except we also have short "campaigns" that either just don't grab the group's attention enough or that aren't really meant to last long term. In raw numbers (go figure--shorter campaigns tend to be more numerous) these would probably throw the average off badly.
And there are active plans afoot to resume a couple of the past campaigns.
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