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

[Doppleganger]

Wow it's really surprising to me that our own group plays for way beyond the apparent average length of time. We can't ever get enough gaming done!! It's really difficult to stop playing a game session, we often end up losing track of time and playing much longer than we intended/wanted.

By high school/early college we were playing twice a week, starting at 5:00pm (with several people showing up early to socialize for a while), and play till 3:00am. More often than not we would become so enraptured in the game that somebody would eventually notice some light outside the window and say "oh no, we played till dawn again!!" (and we did our fair share of 24+ hr weekend marathon sessions at cons every now and then).

Nowadays we are older and have more real-world responsibilities and commitments, so it's become much harder to organize a day/time that's convenient for everybody, so we only manage to play about once every 2-4 weeks or so. To compensate, we've starting doing alot of "daytime/weekday" sessions starting at 8:00am (everybody takes the day off work or school) and continuing on through somewhere between 6:00pm and midnight. We rarely take a break for anything other than pausing while somebody runs into either the kitchen or bathroom. Heck, nobody even wants to waste the time to stop and eat dinner/lunch anymore!! (We usually have some food handy or order a delivery, but are too excited with the game to do much more than nibble on it). Nobody ever wants to stop, but it eventually ends up that a couple of us have to stop because of some other "real-life" commitments.

After DMing lengthy sessions for so long (far too many years than I'm willing to admit), I think it would be much more difficult to squeeze things into the constraints of a single 4hr session. I've always believed that including a wide variety of events in each session was an important part of it's overall success (and some game elements are time-consuming; like in-depth NPC interaction/dynamic battles/intricate mysteries). I admire those of you that can pull the game off within smaller session times.

To respond to the original question, I don't know what to suggest in order to maintain such a continuous high level of enthousiasm, other than to say that it's constantly at the forefront of my mind to keep the players wanting/craving to obtain/complete the next set of desirable goals that are dangling in from of them, it really works if you can keep your players "emotionally" motivated and enraptured by the events/storyarcs/villains/mysteries in the game world.

 

[blaster219]

We usually play on Sataurday nights. Start around 8-9PM and then carry on for as long as we are able. Finish time is usually 1-2AM. Afterall, we've got sunday to recover.

 

[Eridanis]

Ahh, those Bright College Days (cue Tom Lehrer...)

We'd start gaming at 5pm on Friday, play 'til 3am or so. Then another game on Saturday with an different group for a few hours; then Sundays, I'd DM a group from noon to 6pm or so.

Now, it's Wednesday nights from 7pm to 10pm. And I dare say the gaming is better in concentrated form; you know you have just a few hours to hit your goal for the night.

 

[Bagpuss]

As a student we use to regulary game for 7 hour session (on average some more some less) 3 to 5 times a week.

When I started work that dropped once a week Sunday noon till midnight (sometimes broken up by a magic game).

When I got a wife it dropped to once in the week from 6:30 until midnight or 1 o'clock.

Once the wives and other players girlfriends started playing it dropped to 4 hour game sessions once a week (if they could get a baby sitter).

I think my gaming sessions will only get longer once I retire, or all the players with kids have them grow up and leave home (or join the game) so not for another 15 to 40 years.

 

[Kyramus]

I run a once a week (saturday) session that is at least 8 hours. If the parties involved want to continue with add an extra hour or two.

We used to play the overnighters, the 48 hours, etc, but that was when we were in highschool and don't have responsibilities and such.

I'm the type of DM that has a lot of tuff written out and when I'm not running the game, I'm fleshing out more NPCs, more areas, more political intrigue, different avenues and possibilities of adventures, checking character background to see what can be brought up for character development, what evil villian did they miss or misses them

Suggestion to extend your game.......
1) Find out what everyone's schedule is like. If they can devote 8 hours, once a week. Hold them to that. Have allowances for possible things that come up, IE inform everyone if there is no session several days in advance. I tend to inform everyone about 4 days in advance, sometimes a week in advance if there is no game.

2) Imagine you are looking at the pc's from above. And the lines that they can possible take. Pick 4 and make a skeleton map of what the adventure would be about, monsters, any npcs. Pick another 2 and title it, make sure the title gives you enough of an idea of what's supposed to happen. When in play and the pc's do walk on any of the 4 possible avenues, youa re ready. If they walk on the other 2 avenues, you can prepare that as you adlib along without much problems.

3) When you are running the game and seeing it slow down, find some way to keep the game moving. The party stops to bicker about who get's what item while still inside the dungeon flled with monsters. Make a listen check and if a monster hears them, goes to check on them and maybe attack the most unsuspecting one of them, or the lone guard.

4) Never let the players boredom make you bored. When you see them getting restless, check where you are in the game and add an extra encounter, a trap, anything to make them do something. Roll dice for no reason. Say they are so lucky. Then keep going. Don't tell them what the die roll is for.

Hope this helps.

 

[ForceUser]

I play in a weekly game that runs about 3, occasionally 4 hours per session. Every other weekend I play in a Saturday game that runs 6 to 8 hours. After 8 hours, put a fork in me, I'm done (especially if I'm the DM). I mean, that's a full work day!

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

My group meets on average twice a month, and the sessions usually run about 6 hours. Sure, in college we disregarded classes and such for marathon games (I ran a 15 hour session with no preparation once, starting at midnight. We took a break for food, came back, and played 3 more hours. I felt like I'd been beaten!). But today, some of us have families, jobs, or other obligations, so we have to limit our sessions because of the real world. However, once a year, we rent a lodge and have our own mini-con where we game until our eyes bleed.

 

[Psion]

Our typical game runs from 7-11 (pm, not hours. ). Occasionally, if the party is on a roll/near a goal and everyone is up to it, we'll push on until 1 or 2, but that only happens every 2 or 3 months.

We do play twice a week, though, but the Thursday SW games never go over... again, for reasons of the gainfully employed.

 

[DM_Jeff]

My regular group just cut back as of this year from 6 hours to 5. We actually noticed that we still get the same amount of stuff done as we used to in the old days, even more, because of the quickness and ease of d20 combat.

The couples dinner D&D games I run on Saturdays last 4 hours, not including a half hour to eat, and they alway feel like a full night to me.

Haven't played a 7+ hour game since the early 90's.

-DM Jeff

 

[frozenjedi]

I feel very lucky at this point in my life to have a group of 6 steady players in a game that meets every friday night for approx 4-5 hour sessions of gaming.

about every three months or so we switch up games unless a GM/DM is feeling especially inspired.