How long is your sessions, and how do I extend my?

[Fenes 2]

I DM and co-DM in 3 weekly campaigns. One campaign has normally 4 to 5 hour sessions, the other 3 hour sessions and the third, where I exclusively DM, 6 to 8 hour sessions.

 

[Maerdwyn]

Except for rare occasions, we play from 6:30 pm to 10:30 pm, every other week. I'd like it to be longer, but some is better than none!

This is pretty much our schedule, too. Sometimes we start and/or end late. I'd love to play longer or more frequently, but such is life for a gaming father of two whose wife doesn't game

 

[Decamber]

Buttercup, he's young and strong, full of youthful exuberance.

Hehe, you're damned right I am, PC! And hence I should be able to play for some straight 16 hours or so at a minimum, technically speaking. However, it doesn't work in practice, so something has to be wrong. But what?

Thanks for the replies, all!

 

[Thanee]

The first group I play in meets weekly (with rare exceptions) every saturday and starts at 5 pm (some years back we started at 2 pm, but one guy has to work on most saturdays now) and lasts until 2 or 3 am usually, but often also until 5 or 6 am in the morning, rarely even until 8 am. Average would be from 5 pm til 3 am, I guess. That's 10 hours.

The other group I play in meets weekly (with some exceptions) every thursday and starts at 7 pm and lasts until somewhere between 12 pm and 2 am (rarely 3 am). Average would be from 7 pm til 1 am. That's 6 hours, which sometimes seems a little short.

7 hours doesn't really sound all that bad to me.

Back when we had our huge Shadowrun campaign running (with multiple simultaneous groups and a player base of over 30 players, the whole thing was going for 7 years or so) we met monthly at sundays from 11 am til 10 pm!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Decamber]

Looks as if many of you starts playing rather late (speaking relatively to me, that is). I usually start at 1-3 PM and then we're about done at 10 PM. I can see many benefits of starting a little later, about at 6 or 7 PM. For instance, you can sleep out as long as you wish to prevent generally bad mood; you have a whole day of working with D&D: the DM can do the final preperation of the session, and players can check over there character and do anything to enter "D&D mode"; and also, a bigger part of the session will be played at night, where less telephones are ringing and such.

Wohoo - I think I'm on to something big and exciting now!

Thanks

 

[Gospog]

We usually do one 4-hour session, once a week. About 3 hours of that is actual playing.

On rare occasions, we may play for as long as 4-5 hours, but work and school schedules rarely allow it.

 

[Maerdwyn]

For instance, you can sleep out as long as you wish to prevent generally bad mood; you have a whole day of working with D&D...

That sounds great, but I assure you that those are not the reasons I start playing in the evening...

I'm very lucky if I can get back from picking my wife up from work, get dinner made for the family, and my dice picked up from the floor of my son's room before my players arrive after their long days at work.

 

[Decamber]

That sounds great, but I assure you that those are not the reasons I start playing in the evening...

I'm very lucky if I can get back from picking my wife up from work, get dinner made for the family, and my dice picked up from the floor of my son's room before my players arrive after their long days at work.

I understand that you have other reasons to play in the evening, and I assure you that I see most people's reason is because of work.

What I was doing was just thinking out loudly of the benefits I could have of starting to play a little later than now. But others could perhaps have the same benefits - what do I know?

Hmm, now as I've thought some more on starting in the evening instead at around lunch time, I've only came up with either more reasons why I should do that.

Thanks.

(Edit: Changed "thinked" to "thought" - now what was I thinking? )

 

[Thanee]

While you are at it, you could change either to even!

I think in the evening it's also easier to create a good atmosphere for adventuring (must be a pawlowian effect, because all those adventure movies are running in the evening ), for what it's worth!

Bye
Thanee

 

[John Crichton]

I've always found it harder to game when it is fully light out. I always feel like I should be outside, doing something else. Ya know?

Of course, I used to play a ton of outdoor sports so maybe that's it. Altho there have been a few times when I have postponed a session an hour or so to take the group out and play a little frisbee and the like.

Also, to add to this thread: How long does your pre-playing time normally take? Not prep-time, mind you, I'm talking about the time before the session when everyone is sitting at the table. And is this time being added in to your tally in the above poll?

Our group is usually sitting down for at least an hour before we play (food, catching up on events, etc.).